FATE Thus WE Fought There
by iNFAMOUS X
Summary: One day a gate appeared. What emerged from it could only be called monsters, but there are those who prey on monsters, and that gate was only the first. Hear the bells of freedom ring; from sea to shining sea.
1. Thus I'll save them

Fate And thus WE fought there

A/N: I need to get better at sticking with one project hehe, but oh well I flow with the inspiration.

Hopefully this'll be kinda fresh.

Hataraku Aizen Chan and the next chap of Fate Lagoon are still being worked on. I just needed a break with something fresh to get the juices flowing. Got a few once shot ideas actually, but tonight just decided to sit down and bang one out. Unfortunately this time it's kind of another Epic that will take more time and energy that I don't have to complete. But, we'll see the response I get and how my inspiration and muse holds out.

A few things to keep in mind about this story. Firstly, it is set in another AU from the normal FATE routes and it a different setting than the one in Fate Lagoon. This Shirou is a different version from that one, though they have some similarities.

For Nasuverse critics. I'm aware of some Nasu-verse stuff, but I'm not going to be chained down by it. It's a fanfic so if some things don't match up with the mechanics, meh.. Suspend your disbelief for a bit.

Summary: One day a gate appeared. What emerged from it could only be called monsters, but there are those who prey on monsters, and that gate was only the first. Hear the bells of freedom ring; from sea to shining sea.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the anime or intellectual properties that are portrayed or mentioned in this fic with the exception of the various OC's that will come into play.

Font Key:

"normal speech"

 _'_ _Thought's, and flashbacks'_

 **"** **Techniques: and moments of impact"**

* * *

Chapter1: Thus I'll save them

It was a foolish notion.

EMIYA had truly believed that if he could only kill the past version of himself it would free him from his curse. Well, perhaps belief wasn't the word. It was Hope, a frantic, desperate hope that somehow it would be possible to escape the endless torment that he had chosen for himself that drove him on and gave him the will to keep fighting. He'd do anything to escape the hell that he had once so eagerly marched headfirst into with a smile on his face thinking "Everything will be alright as long as I can save people". He knew now the cold reality of that dream. He'd learnt the lesson that his father before him, had tried to warn him of.

To even manage that first kill was a trying task. Countless Grail wars had a copy of him been summoned to, and unlike most servants, he had the pleasure of re uniting with the defeated copy and gaining the collective memories and experience from them. It seemed sometimes as if the Counter Force itself was against him, actively working to prevent him from achieving his goal.

In some lives he was slain by Berserker, in others he faded from existence asking Rin to watch over the past him, Sometimes he fought and was bested by his younger self in an impossible miracle, others still he entrusted his arm to the younger Shirou before fading away.. then there was the virtual simulator, and the dream that cycled over and over..

Yet in none of them was he successful. So many close calls..

So many times he had been centimeters from his goal only to have it snatched from his grasp by the whim of fate.

Even in the Dream he'd managed to kill both Saber and that other Shirou on the bridge dozens of times.. only to find that the 'Shirou' he had killed was a fake. A fake of a faker.. and he fell for it every damn re set.

No it seemed as though his goal was to forever elude him. He had seen the copies of him killed before they could succeed, give up their objectives, and in some cases, even re acknowledge that foolish ideal..

Every time the memories would return to him adding to the countless archives that lay locked away in his mind. He wished he could impart foreknowledge of the Grail War to his to copies, but they always re set every time he was summoned.

And then one day, he won the lottery. The stars aligned and E ranked luck finally came through for him. Locked in yet another of the innumerable battles he had fought with the younger Shirou he ducked underneath a slash of the copied Kanshou bade and pushed off the ground with a roar stabbing his own version of the blade forwards at near supersonic speeds.

The wet squelching sound of steel meeting flesh rang through the destroyed chateau. And Emiya rose up and brought his Byakuya blade down in a cleaving motion that ended with it embedded in the floor. A spiderweb of cracks ran out from the strike and ended near a pair of armored boots standing nearby.

The boy named Emiya Shirou with his face still frozen in shock, split down the middle and the two parts of him fell to the ground with a thud.

A scream tore through the room but EMIYA barely heard it. His gaze was transfixed on the sight of the corpse in front of him.

Archer had cut Emiya Shirou many times, he'd wounded him grievously in several of the timelines, but this..

His organs lay splattered in a pile. His body was totally split in two.

He blinked once half expecting the sight of his objective to fade as his vision re focused.

When he opened his eyes the sight hadn't changed.

There could be no doubt, Avalon or not the one named Emiya Shirou was dead. There was no coming back from this.

 _'_ _As it turns out.. It seems that people die when they're killed..'_ he thought sardonically.

A deep rumbling began to emanate from his chest as he allowed his traced blades to dissolve into particles of light.

"I did it." He murmured. "It's over.. the nightmare is over. Ha ha ha ha!" He stumbled backwards and let loose a deafening laugh of relief and joy.

"AAAARRRCHHHERRRR!" came the furious warcry of the rooms other occupant but EMIYA paid it no mind. His gaze never left the sight of his dream finally realized.

He simply laughed and took deep rasping breaths as he waited for the world to fade to white and the paradox of his dwindling existence to overtake him.

He had finally succeeded. Against all odds he had killed his past self. Now it was time to reap the prize for his efforts.

That prize.. was a near invisible blade coated in wind biting into his neck for just a moment of resistance and then continuing its momentum as it beheaded him in an instant.

The momentum of Saber's prana burst enhanced swing spun her around and she dug her armored glove into the floor to slow herself down and whirled around to face her opponent..

Just in time to see the headless servant Archer finish dissolving into motes of light.

The copy of Archer returned and the memories played out at an impossible rate as they always did.

In that timeline Emiya Shirou died, and Saber made a contract with Tohsaka Rin to continue the war. Gilgamesh fought Saber again and easily crushed her under a rain of Noble Phantasms.

He subdued Caster and stole her Rule Breaker dagger and became Sabers master. Rin was killed by Kirei Kotomine and Angra Maiynu was born into the world and plunged it into utter destruction.

It took the combined might of various Magicians and users of True Magic in cooperation with The 12 Ancestors to put it down. By the time they succeeded several of the Magic powers had been weakened and Saber finally succumbing to the power of the stolen Command Seals, obediently acknowledged Gilgamesh as her new Master. The arrogant King dressed her in a white toga and golden jewelry and after taking her maidenhood he placed her with the rest of his Harem in a specially made cage that froze time within his endless Gate of Babylon.

His end came in a rather anticlimactic way. After deciding to destroy the world he was tricked by a cunning Mage that offered him the finest wine in the modern world. Gilgamesh in his arrogance sampled it and finding it lacking, killed the offending mage.

Shortly thereafter he felt himself growing weaker, his attempt to find an antidote within his Gate failed due to the sheer enormity of his treasury and in mere minutes he faded from existence, not with a bang, but a whimper.

That timeline didn't fare too well. Eventually the aftershocks of one boy's death brought about ruin to the whole of Humanity.

Archer saw this and paled. He would only later realize the horrible truth. His hope as often is with most desperate hopes, was based on a fallacy. As a counter Guardian he existed outside of the concept of time. Killing another Shirou whether in the past or not would only change that reality. It would do nothing to free him.

There was a way however.

If every instance of Emiya Shirou could be erased.. If somehow every possible version that existed was killed off. Then a true paradox could be created.

Of course this was absurd. The nature of the Kaleidoscope saw to that. New realties were always popping up branching outwards in an ever expanding tree of possibilities. That method was totally unfeasible.

It took him several more cycles but eventually he was able to kill another Shirou, then another, and again it continued but nothing changed. After what seemed like eons had passed he found another opportunity.

Somehow he had been summoned to the Fourth War as the servant of Tohsaka Tokiomi as Servant Archer. Remembering how Gilgamesh had survived the ten years between the wars he recalled that being exposed to the toxic sludge of the Grail had allowed him limited mortality.

He carefully bided his time and plotted to position himself at a point where he could try that method when another opportunity he hadn't even considered presented itself.

Saber had been weakened in a battle with him and had been unable to destroy the Grail. Before he could finish it off with his own Noble Phantasm, Angra Maiynu appeared once again. The Wizard Marshall Zelretch was not currently in the dimension and this single fact pushed the event to a threat that the current Magic powers could not overcome and thus the whole of Humanity was threatened.

Archer was pushed backwards but just as he was killed a strange sensation overtook him. Counter Guardian EMIYA had arrived. Since the Servant Archer was a spiritual body the Counter Guardian anchored on to it and in a strange 1 in a Biliion circumstance Counter Guardian EMIYA and Servant Archer had merged into one being. CG EMIYA had faced Angra before and knew how to put it down. The Counter Force ensured the he would be just strong enough to defeat it and his own immeasurable experience pushed his edge even further. Through the merger and Archers Independent Action he'd managed to regain a slight remnant of autonomy and his single minded drive to escape burned alongside his need to 'Eliminate the threat'

Allowing himself to be eaten by the Monstrous infant like creature he Unleashed Unlimited Bladeworks within the belly of the creature and Broke all of the Noble Phantasms within.

" **Shattered Bladeworks** " The agent of Alaya growled out.

Angra Maiynu ceased to exist.

As the Reality Marble exploded around him and relinquished its grip on the space it had usurped it gave way to the roaring flames brought on by the initial outpouring. Toxic goop dripped from his matted silver hair and he could feel the curses whispering into his ear. The fury and rage of all of Humanities evils tried to corrupt him and bend him to their will, but an acting Counter Guardian is not an individual, merely an extension of Humanities will. The slight deviation granted by its merger with the Servant Archer allowed only for the single impulse of escape and Freedom. Thus he escaped corruption, but the mortality warping properties were persistent and the already Hybrid being began to mutate.

It was this strange set of circumstances that found CG EMIYA standing amidst a sea of flames when at that exact moment a young Red haired child collapsed in front of him. It was Fire that burned away whoever the boy had been and turned him to the blank slate that would become Shirou. One could say that this moment was the defining point where his origin changed to become 'Sword' The birth of Emiya Shirou.

Escape.

The single command rang through the Mutated beings fractured consciousness.

Escape.

He took a step forwards even as the call of Alaya beckoned him back. He began to dissolve but still he trudged forwards.

And then.. he noticed it.

The particles of light weren't floating into the sky to rejoin Alaya. They were flowing into the boy.

The Birth of Emiya Shirou, the Merger of the beings, the slight mortality from the sludge, so many variables and the lack of a single one would result in a different outcome, and yet..

The one known as Counter Guardian EMIYA was anchoring himself to the young boy who would one day become him.

And so he smiled.

The boy looked up as he saw a strange sight. He could barely make out the features of the strange Silver haired man marching towards him. The only thing he could seem to focus on was the incredible smile on his face. He seemed so happy to see him.

Freedom..

EMIYA reached out to the young dying boy with a hand already beginning to dissolve. His smile and tears of relief never faltered.

 _'_ _I wonder..'_ The boy thought blearily. ' _It would sure be great if I could be that happy.'_

As Counter Guardian EMIYA faded completely and joined with the soul of the boy in the fire he had one final thought.

 _'_ _I am'_

Moments later a man in a tattered black coat ran up and frantically searched through the rubble eventually discovering the broken body of the young boy on deaths door. Making a hasty decision he implanted the Sheathe of Avalon within him and rushed him to the nearest hospital.

* * *

Emiya Shirou was the one who existed here. It could be said that the man known as Counter Guardian EMIYA no longer existed. At the same time, that wouldn't be entirely true. Shirou and EMIYA had merged. It was Shirou's body, but EMIYA's existence was infinitely more powerful and so the Two became one. Shirou suppressed much of EMIYA, but about two years since being adopted by Kiritsugu he began to remember things he hadn't done.

Over the next few years this continued until shortly after Kiritsugu's death the mental merger was complete. Shirou was EMIYA but he was also Shirou. And Shirou had made the same foolish promise to Kiritsugu. EMIYA's origin may have been 'sword' but as far as Shirou was concerned his origin was 'sword of justice'.

His young mind couldn't grasp the deeper meaning behind the existence of the Counter Guardian that EMIYA had been. As he got older he understood it but he stubbornly held fast to his promise. Instead he used his foreknowledge to prepare for the coming Grail War and to establish his relationships earlier. During this preparation time he had managed to make several contacts and his rapidly increasing abilities allowed him a reputation as a genius combat spell caster. Amongst them he'd rescued Arcueid Brunestead from being attacked by a blood crazed Shiki Tohno, then assisted the White Princess and the Burial Agent Ceil in hunting down and defeating her enemies Nrvnqsr and Roa.

During this time he'd met Aoko Aozaki, who was fascinated with the strange seemingly human boy with the growing powers of a Servant and a Counter Guardian. He'd also met and indebted her sister Toko Aozaki as he'd planned.

He had faced off with several of the more powerful member of the Magic world and was gaining a reputation that led many to seek him as an apprentice. Fortunately he had done so under the disguise of a crimson warrior using the material of a shroud that Ceil had gifted him after their battle with Roa. He escaped being forced into it by Having Aoko claim him as her apprentice while allowing him the freedom to continue his work In exchange for his cooperation on several of her missions and studies.

Eventually after bringing a younger Tohsaka Rin and Matou Sakura in on some of his plans the three of them received their Command Seals and the Fifth Grail War was set in motion.

For his first Deviation Shirou killed Kirei Kotomine and rescued Bazzet Fraga McRemitz. He was unable to prevent the Command Seal transfer and though and so he had to kill Lancer as well in order to save her from her former servant. The disgraced Servant thanked him though as he faded and made him promise to protect Bazett.

Next he rescued Caster from her first master and after informing her of the truth behind the grail she agreed to work with him to purify, deconstruct, or if need be destroy it. She formed a contract with Rin and began acting as a teacher in magecraft.

He summoned Saber just as he had intended using Avalon as his catalyst. After explaining things to her she was upset but understanding and agreed to assist him in his plans.

During the course of the war she came to value Shirou and accepted that trying to alter her past would disgrace those who died for her. Coming to peace with this she agreed to let her legacy lay as it did and focus on her future.

Many of the Servants had chosen to remain in the world and live out their existence.

The final conclusion of one of Shirou's long term plans came about when he reconciled with Illya. Knowing that her body was set for failure in a short time, he had called in his favor and commissioned Toko Aozaki to simply make a new healthy one. With Medea's help and Illya's partial understanding of the Heavens Feel they were able to transfer her to the new body with no major complications.

Illya lost some of the magic power her old body has possessed but her new one was still extremely powerful and far more stable.

At the conclusion of the event Shirou's goals were largely accomplished. He stopped Angra Maiynu from emerging. The grail was unable to be purified and so it was destroyed, and the vast majority of his friends and their servants were allowed to remain in the world.

And so For Shirou the path to becoming a hero of justice was one step closer. He had also gained a large group of incredibly powerful allies and his Fathers compound was rapidly becoming a literal force in the magic world. He affectionately called his group

'The Justice League of Fyuuki.'

Time continued to pass and Shirou and his friends graduated from High School. Rin and Medea left to enter the clock tower, while the rest of the group stayed focused in Fyuuki.

And so we find our protagonist at the beginning of this tale..

* * *

Shirou yawned loudly as he tried to shake the drowsiness from his features. He had gotten up extra early in order to make the trip to Ginza, Tokyo for some silly Anime Convention Illya was interested in.

She had originally planned to come with him, but she was due for a checkup of her body and couldn't put it off. When Toko Aozaki showed up on the doorsteps of the Emiya residence with a scowl on her face and impatiently motioned to hurry it up. Illya knew her plans were sunk. It wasn't like they could just re schedule this for another day when the notorious Sealing designate wasn't being hunted down.

So it was with a heavy heart that she sent Shirou on his mission to acquire a long list of otaku items that Arcuied had also added to. He ran his hands through his locks of red hair that was already beginning show streaks of silvery grey. His eyes were still the warm brown of his youth and he let them scan over the massive list of items and couldn't help but wonder if the budget he had been given would be enough for even half of it. He'd most likely have to cut into his own funds to pay for all this.

All of a sudden a cry to his left attracted his attention.

"Oh my gosh mommmy, look it's Sentai Spartan!"

Shirou twitched his eye before letting out a sigh and standing up to grasp his cardboard Shield and Styrofoam spear and strike a phalanx pose.

"Even if the enemy is a million strong, I will never give up, the Flames of justice burn within me Sentai Spartan is here!"

"Wow, so cool can I get a photo!" the small child ran to him and hugged his leg. The mother bowed apologetically.

Shirou grinned and placed his vertical slit helmet on. "Certainly, will you stand with me for justice!" The bright red brush super glued to the top of his head bobbed up and down slightly with the motion.

The now group of children eagerly surrounding him nodded vigorously and Shirou posed with them while the parents and guardians took pics on their cell phone cams.

After the last of them thanked him and ran off Shirou sat back down on the train seat and glanced out the window through his face slit.

Illya had insisted that he cosplay and since she wasn't going to be able to come she wanted him to get as many photos as possible with him and other cosplayers. Sentai Spartan was the easiest outfit to throw together and so he'd gone with it.

He was curious how the checkup was going so he decided to call home and check in.

Pulling out his cellphone he opened the call page and typed in his number. A moment later a chipper voice picked up.

"Hello, Emiya Residence, may I ask who's callin?"

"Hey Kohaku it's Shirou, how are things going with the checkup?"

The chipper maid on the other end giggled. "Oh it's Shirou-kun.."

Arcuied's loud voice roared from the tv room. "Oh Watchtower to Sentai Spartan, all systems are green sir!"

Shirou smiled. "Hey, Arc, nice to see you're up this morning. It's a little unusual for her not to be sleeping in isn't it?"

Kohaku's answer was cut short as a scuffing sound took over before a smooth sensual voice glided over his ears.

"Good morning Shirou, how is your trip going?"

Shirou glanced out the window to see the station in the distance. "Ah, the same to you Rider, it's going well, I've had quite a few photo ops so far.. maybe I should consider modeling, I'm building quite the portfolio what do you think." Shirou asked satirically.

Rider hummed on the other end. "As one with modeling experience I would advise against it. The directors are rather unsavory people. I had to…. Discipline the last few."

Shirou chuckled awkwardly. "Ah right.. I'm gonna pretend I didn't hear that.. by the way how's Illya doing? Is she getting along with Aozaki-san?"

Rider propped the phone between her shoulder and head and reached into the kitchen cabinet to grab a box of crackers. "As far as I can tell, it appears to be going as smoothly as can be expected."

Shirou heard the cabinet door close and rider lowered her voice conspiratorially. "Now then Shirou, there is something that I would like to discuss with you.."

"In regards to our previous discussion concerning Bike No.1, have you considered my proposal?"

Shirou blinked. "Eh."

"Remember Shirou, I am willing to reward you for your cooperation. I think you shall greatly enjoy my reward." She cooed seductively.

Shirou was about to respond when the sound of a door closing echoed in the background and Sakura and Saber's voice could be heard inquiring about the phone.

Rider immediately fumbled with the phone in surprise before bidding a hasty goodbye. "We will speak of this later, have a good day Shirou Goodbye." With this she hung up on him and Shirou closed out the call function and put his phone away in a pocket on his book bag.

The train soon stopped and he moved to exit onto the platform and made his way to the escalator. Glancing once more at the list in his hand he began looking around for some signs or directions to the event.

"Well, the first stops is the Doujinishi sale and exhibit." He murmured looking around at the crowd of people meandering through the area.

As he exited the escalator and his foot hit the next platform his nose twitched.

Shirou was said to be a magic bloodhound. His ability to sense magic anomalies via scent was somewhat infamous amongst his peers, and even Aoko had been unable to really determine how it worked without vivisecting him.

These senses were firing off now, and with each passing second they grew stronger. His eyes narrowed and he began to scan his surroundings in confusion. Without paying it much attention He folded up the list of items and crammed it in a pocket of the pants underneath his costume.

He began casting Reinforcement on himself and Activated the Enhancement runes he hastily etched onto the inside of his aluminum armor. His breastplate, pauldrons, vambraces, and greeves all shimmered imperceptibly.

Calling upon his skills as an Archer he focused his eyes and scanned the immediate area, before eventually seeing a strange nearly transparent structure beginning to form just near the Ginza line station in the middle of crowded pedestrians.

No one else seemed to be paying it any attention, but Shirou narrowed his eyes and immediately began to move towards it. As he got closer an imaginary hammer cocked back in his head and his circuits began to thrum gently.

As he moved the strange object finally began to solidify and the people around it stopped to take notice. It appeared to be some sort of Gate or opening, and the dark, inky blackness of the opening concealed what lay beyond it.

And then, a black blur shot out. Shirou's eyes widened in disbelief. It was an honest to goodness Dragon! A Phantasmal Beast that hadn't been seen since the age of the gods!?

Shaking his head of his stupor he took off in a run and leapt off a platform to land in a crouch on top of a red pig like creature before slamming the beasts head down with a sickening crunch. He looked behind him to see a frightened girl and her mother on their knees trying to back away and he grinned and gave a thumbs up.

"Even if the enemy is a million strong, I will never give up, the Flames of justice burn within me Sentai Spartan is here!"

The little pigtailed girl blinked in confusion and her mother just stared in horror at the things around her shaking.

Shirou helped her back to her feet and took the little girls hand. He motioned for them to get inside a small store and when the doors closed he discretely traced a spear and stabbed it into the ground. The spear was an ornamental stave that contained a portable Compulsion Bounded field and Barrier that should keep the occupants safe.

He then turned and charged forwards at a group of Calvary running down pedestrians and brutally skewering them on their swords. His Enhanced prop spear shattered on contact with the first enemy, but he caught the falling man's sword and cleaved a leg of the man's horse off causing the beast to fall and tripping up the other charging soldiers.

As they fell Shirou began slicing his way through them with the borrowed sword. Instantly he knew the sword he was using down to the minor imperfections in its makeup. He knew the weapon was a standard issued Empire Blade for the legionnaires and Horse Brigade.

He also knew that it was reaching the limits of its usage.

He turned to parry the massive warhammer of a large green skinned beastman and the blade began to shake before snapping off. He grimaced and threw the ruined remnant at the monster who'd swung and darted to the side to avoid a hail of arrows.

Suddenly his Phone began to ring but he paid it little mind as he jumped up and drove his knee into the face of another soldier about to cart an older man off by the hair.

The phone in his pack finally stopped as it's automatic voicemail kicked in having missed the call.

"I'm sorry you've reached Emiya Shirou, but it seems that I'm unable to come to the phone right now, please leave your name and a brief message and I'll do my best to return your call when I can.."

* * *

"Dammit Shirou!" The housephone was crushed under a superhuman grip.

Illya frantically turned to see Rider staring at the Television grimly. Her own hands were fisted and her lavender hair slightly wriggling.

Nearby an explosion of Prana shed a modest blue dress and a white dress shirt and revealed Saber in her Blue and Silver Battle Armor. She prepared to leap onto the roof and charge off into Ginza at top speed until a voice stopped her.

"Hold it Servant. Just what do you think you're doing?"

Saber growled out. "Do you not see what's happening, I've seen this dozens of times. It's an invading army, they will pillage and destroy, and what's more Shirou is obviously in the middle of it, He'll need our help!"

Toko Aozaki sighed as her lips curled around a half smoked cigarette. "Emiya Shirou is a Servant class combatant; he's been there from the start. Haven't you noticed a distinct lack of Swords raining from the sky or Anti Army Phantasms exploding?" "Why do you think that is?"

She shook her head, her short hair swishing against her cheeks. "This event is being broadcast to the public, the secrecy of magic is something every organization in the world is paying attention to. THEY will be watching and if there are any overt displays.. the hammer is going to come down."

The sobering message was only further driven home when nearby a large crystal began to flicker and a distorted image sprang up. "Please, tell me you didn't let that idiot anywhere near this mess!?"

Tohsaka Rin was frantically motioning with her hands as she looked around trying to see from the limited crystal vantage point.

"The whole world is watching this.. Its already spread to London and we're watching it on live stream.. Live stream on the INTERNET! IN the CLOCKTOWER!? "

Sakura ran up to the device with tears in her eyes. "Nee-sama, Senpai was there to buy Illya-chan some books, but he's in a costume at least.. What are we going to do we have to help him!"

Strands of Sakura's hair begin to turn white and dark energy started to emanate from her.

Rin paled. "Ah wait Sakura, you can't.. I mean I know how you feel but it's Shirou we're talking about.. He'll be ok.. he just needs to keep things to a reasonable level.. But you all, you absolutely can't go, no matter what."

"Ara?" came a soft voice to Rins right. Medea leaned over Rin's shoulder and craned her head from side to side. "Where are Saber and Rider-chan?"

The Emiya Household paled.

Arcueid's annoyed voice rang out. "Aww, that's just not fair!"

Meanwhile several miles down the road the thunderous engine of the V Max motorcycle roared out as The two female occupants dressed in form fitting black suits raced down the street swerving through traffic irregardless of law or onlookers.

Behind her Rider tightened her grip on Sabers waist and the blonde king twitched her eye. "We shall never speak of this again."

"Agreed." The Gorgon queen capitulated in a monotone.

* * *

Finally the Police force presence at Ginza had mobilized and arrived in mass to respond to the attackers. Some of them noted that one of the armored soldiers seemed to be fighting his comrades for some reason. They ignored this though and decided to focus fire on all armored men and sort the details out later.

Shirou grimaced as a rain of bullets descended on him and his opponents and he moved to find cover behind a concrete pillar. Turning he saw a DragonRider brought to the ground by a local officer with a hand gun. The wounded soldier grimaced and stood up before turning and charging at the officer who was frozen in shock.

The red haired magus was about to intercept him when a man in an orange shirt and white shorts rushed in and took the man down with a headlock. From there the man grabbed the soldier's dropped dagger and he jammed it into his squirming opponent's throat killing him and causing a small splotch of blood to hit his face.

A shadow loomed over him and the man rolled to the side bringing the knife up in a defensive crouch as he turned to see his new opponent.

"Here." Shirou said tossing him a Gladius type sword. "This'll probably do you more good than a dagger."

The man blinked a few times before grinning and picking up the offered weapon. "Eh, thanks.."

He began but to his surprise his benefactor was gone.

The police officer finally shook out of his stupor and he moved to direct the frightened women behind him to safety.

"Wait," the man in the orange shirt intoned tilting his head. "Wasn't that guy the really cheesy new Sentai hero from the show that's getting canceled?"

Shirou had moved on.

Evading the hail of bullets sent his way, he ran up the side of a building at high speeds. His steps created a shockwave which shattered the glass windows underneath him and he rose up and landed onto the roof. From his new vantage point he could see a Drgonrider maneuvering behind a Helicopter. He pulled out a bow and arrow he'd pilfered from an enemy archer and applied alteration to it increasing its aerodynamics and the strength of the head.

Closing one eye he released the arrow knowing that it had already hit the target and only needed to physically travel to do so as a courtesy to causality.

The arrow shot true and hit the Black Dragon in the small vulnerable area on his throat in-between his scales. The creature plummeted to the streets and the impact killed the rider.

From his roof spot he continued to snipe off as many of the enemy about to kill innocents as possible prioritizing those that were in the most imminent danger.

It's impossible to save everyone. But that didn't mean that it was wrong to try to save as many as he could. A part of him sneered in disgust at the selflessness, but he didn't care.

"I wasn't wrong, it's not wrong to want to save people." He murmured as he released another arrow with a twang of his bowstring.

Finally the JSDF arrived and the majority of the citizens had been herded into the walls behind the imperial city.

The Ground Self Defense Forces took up a position and opened fire on the advancing Army. The Armored soldiers resembling a cross between knights and Roman legionnaires were mowed down. Their shields were penetrated like paper and the formations fell apart into chaos as a retreat was ordered.

The Police and Special Tactics Units all cheered as the enemy was put down and moved to restore order.

However, from his point on the roof Emiya Shirou could see something that the others were missing. Leading the charge back towards the gate were a small group of the frantic soldiers. But it was the gate itself that caught his attentions.

He saw several carts disappearing into the inky blackness and his enhanced hearing caught the screams and cries of the men, women, and children held within.

"No, where's my mommy!"

My Husband, give him back you demons!"

"Honey, honey where are you!?"

"Please, somebody, anybody save us!"

His lips set in a grim frown. The brown eyes took on a fierce orange glow that illuminated his dark slitted helmet.

He reached wordlessly into his pack and typed a quick message and hit group send before putting the phone back in his pocket.

With that he leapt into the air and running along the rooftops he made his way to the strange gate that the last of the straggling soldiers were now retreating back into.

He landed on the concrete ground with a small crunch and took off in a sprint into the dark abyss and towards the unknown.

Back at the Emiya residence Sakura and everyone else's phone chimed with a text message.

Looking down they each read the simple sentence that shattered their worlds.

 _"_ _They took prisoners.. sorry."_

Sakura collapsed into the couch in depression and Arcueid lowered her head her fangs slightly poking out from her frown.

Back in London Tohaska Rin finished her typing and hit send.

A moment later a chime arrived causing her to glance at the screen to confirm her suspicions.

 _"_ _We apologize, the person you are trying to reach is not available at this time. They may be out of signal range or perhaps their device is deactivated. We will deliver your message as soon they log back in, or you can try again at a later time. We apologize for the inconvenience"_

Rin took a deep breath and let her head droop into her palms. Her initial message showcased on the screen before it blinked out due to her screen timer.

 _"_ _Idiot.."_

AN.

Thanks for reading. If you like the story or the idea please let me know. I was inspired by Cardinal Grief's **Fate- Thus the JSDF fought there** story. In fact I had no idea of the existence of the property until that but I read the manga to check it out and it seemed interesting.

So I decided to do my own version of a crossover. My story will probably be quite difficult than his. I don't know where he's going with it, but I have my own plans.

Next chapter: Rangers Lead the Way!

Reviews are always appreciated.


	2. Rangers Lead the Way

Fate And thus WE fought there

A/N: It's been awhile. So I have two chapters of this coming out, plus a few one shots That I'm finishing up that were sitting on my drive, then Hopefully I can get the much anticipated next chapter of Fate Lagoon out.

For whatever reason, this is the story that came to me with the most inspiration so it's going to get the most attention. I am also currently working on an original light novel so that is taking some time as well, but I still need to improve on my skills in preparation for that so I bring forth more fanfiction for you to view.

Summary: One day a gate appeared. What emerged from it could only be called monsters, but there are those who prey on monsters, and that gate was only the first. Hear the bells of freedom ring; from sea to shining sea.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the anime or intellectual properties that are portrayed or mentioned in this fic with the exception of the various OC's that will come into play.

Font Key:

"normal speech"

' _Thought's, and flashbacks'_

" **Techniques: and moments of impact"**

I'm also going back to my 000000000000000000000000 as line breaks since they transfer better than the lines in the Doc editor.

* * *

Chapter2: Rangers lead the Way

00000000000000000000000

The T.V. in the lavish hotel room was droning on as another set of reporters and supposed experts theorized on the Political and economic consequences of the recent attack on Ginza. The world at large had been stunned by the attack and the sheer brazenness of such a move by the unknown invaders.

A slender blonde woman frowned in concern as she clicked off the end call option after listening to the busy signal for another few seconds, The woman ran a hand through her golden mane and fell back onto the soft bed staring up at the ceiling,

A voice called out to her from outside the room informing her that they would need to leave for dance practice in 5 minutes.

She sat up and glanced over at her red electric guitar sitting in its worn leather case and smoothed out her white blouse and black workout shorts. "Well, at the very least I should check in and see if they were involved in it, I'm sure the local Owners will be having a fit by this point."

She rose to her feet and pulled on a pair of white sneakers and took a deep breath before grabbing a small bag bearing the insignia of the group she was a part of.

Making a mental note to inform her producers that she would be taking some time off after the completion of their latest music video shoot, she smacked her face lightly and put on a bright smile.

She opened up her door just in time to see her fellow bandmates all filing down the hallways with their own bags all bearing the **10-Shi** Idol group logo as well.

Giving an energetic wave to her friends she quickly closed and locked her door and moved to join them on their trek to the elevator.

000000000000000000000000000000000000

Shirou carefully made his way through the thick forest. He moved his traced Machete to push aside a stray limb without breaking it. The motion cut a slice into the thin blanket of mist that seemed to cover the forested area. As he slowly stepped past another small quicksand hole he contemplated his current misfortune.

 _He had ran after the retreating soldiers intent on a quick hostage rescue, however seeing the bronze Spartan like figure gaining on them, Several soldier began shooting at him with a volley of arrows that he skillfully either dodged or plucked from the air and cast aside._

 _Seeing the fearsome display of skill a brown hooded member of the retreating group standing atop a cage full of screaming prisoners threw a glowing colored stone at their pursuer. Shirou easily evaded the projectile but was slightly caught off guard when the object created a mini tornado of brightly colored lights. He was momentarily sucked up into the spinning vortex and found himself spinning haphazardly for a few moments before he righted himself and drew back his arm slicing through the thick wall of wind in a single motion. As he did so he failed to notice the runic Magic Circle being drawn underneath him._

 _The resulting opening destabilized the tornado causing it to transform into a mini hurricane. Shirou easily walked through the shifting blue and purple tempest and then turned to see his quarry only to realize that they were no longer in sight. He narrowed his eyes and shot off through the dark tunnel at hypersonic speeds that left a small crater where he'd been standing and a delayed sonic boom that dispersed the remaining colored winds._

 _A small opening of light appeared and seemed to expand to right in front of him in an instant and he shot through the opening and leapt high into the evening sky with a quickly forming frown._

 _He noted it was strangely evening when the retreat had happened at midafternoon. To make matters even more confusing he had just exited a small cave and was now dropping down a waterfall. Shirou had just enough time to take a small breath before he was plunged into the frigid frothing water at the base. He had fortunately still had his legs reinforced so when he landed on some jagged rocks under the water's surface it only amounted to slight tingle and some pulverized rocks._

 _He rose back to the surface and moved along with the current until he was able to crawl onto the bank and flop onto his back finally allowing himself to breathe again. Absently he pulled at the strap of his miraculously still attached back pack and opened it to see that the waterproof construction had held up. He patted down his pants and pulled out his phone and keys and was relieved to see that his water resistant case had appeared to do its job. He idly noted that his phone had no bars and an out of service signal warning at the top. A quick swipe to unlock it and a small selfie proved that its operation at least seemed to be in order. He noted from the sighing pic of his face that he had lost his prop helmet at some point during the chase and his red hair with three white streaks running through it had matted around his face with mud and a few small leaves._

 _Brushing it clean as best he could with small handful of the rushing water, he slicked it back into a spiked style and closed up his bag and returned his phone to its pocket. Doing a quick check of his prop armor he discovered that the breastplate was relatively unscathed. He'd lost both his leg greaves and shoe top covers, but he retained his waist guards and sword belt. He had one shoulder pauldron remaining and his wrist guards and gloves were dented and torn, but still useable._

 _He once more cursed his inability to resist Illya's pleading and had chosen to go ahead and pack a change of clothes in his pack instead of the assortment of magazines, mangas, figurines, Dvd's and other memorabilia he was supposed to get signed by the various voice actors, but alas, Shirou was whipped._

 _As it stood his outfit under the ruined Sentai armor was a simple pair of black cargo pants and a white t-shirt. His prop sandals had not survived the trip at all and he found himself barefoot. With a glance to the edge of a nearby forest he slowly began his trek through the unknown area, hoping to find some shelter before night fell._

00000000000000000000000000000000000

* * *

Shirou continued his reminiscing as the last bit of sunlight fell behind the tree line and was brought from his ponderings by the sound of a struggle.

He quickly but quietly moved through the trees and came across a larger quicksand pit than usual, but it was the occupant currently struggling inside it that caught his attention.

It appeared to be a female but she was wearing some sort of bulky uniform that was currently caked in almost as much greyish red goop as her face and truth be told she looked like a swamp or mud monster more than anything.

He could only guess it was a female by the smaller size, longer hair, and most importantly the growling curses spewing from her mouth.

She was only up to her upper waist, but it seemed she was good and stuck. What really caught his attention was the fact that she was cursing in English. Not, medieval English, either, but strangely modern somewhat slang English. She had a bit of a strange drawl to her tone as well.

Shirou observed for a few more moments and then cleared his throat and moved forwards speaking in English with a somewhat terrible accent.

"Eh, Pardon me, would you rike some herp?"

The woman quickly snapped her neck to his direction with a look of horror evident on her mud caked face and she darted her eyes from side to side trying to find a way to deal with the intrusion.

Shirou just raised his hands up and took a step back and tilted his head inquisitively.

The woman finally settled her eyes on him and then blinked. "What the fuck?" "What are you wearing? Did you get in a fight with a can opener?"

Shirou raised an eyebrow. "I'd hardly be commenting on others appearances if I was in your position, how is your mud facial going? Do you feel any younger?"

The woman snorted and growled out "Watch your tone, kid what company are you with? Where'd you get that crappy armor, where's your commanding officer?"

Shirou narrowed his eyes at that question. "I'm afraid there might be a mistake maam, I'm not a part of any military force, I was just moving through the forest and heard your struggle and thought I could come help."

It was now the woman's turn to title her head. "What, you're a civilian? Are you one of the escaped prisoners?" "Well never mind that for the moment, could you help me get out of this pit before it turns dark. We'll need to make camp and two sets of hands are more likely to make it outta here."

Shirou nodded. "Alright, first off go ahead and lean back, if I try to pull you out either we'll both get stuck or you'll dislocate your arms. Try to wiggle a foot loose. And I'll see if I can find some vines or a rope."

The woman reached for her wrist and then threw Shirou a small bracelet. Upon observation he saw that it was made of paracord with a small muddy compass on the top.

Shirou nodded and quickly unwound it and then tossed an end back to her and instructed her to tie it around her leg.

He then created a temporary pulley system using a tree limb and began slowly pulling one of her legs up as he instructed her to lean back gently wiggle and try to relax.

By the time he had a leg on the surface night had fallen, but it was enough. And using a monkey crawl the woman was finally able to claw her way to solid earth and Shirou helped hoist her the rest of the way out. She fell back onto her back and groaned muttering "Ugh and I thought Swamp Phase was bad."

Shirou motioned to her filthy outfit. "You need to go ahead and get that outfit off, and try to wash as much grit as you can, or you're going to have a pretty bad rash and a cold to boot."

She frowned and sat up to pull off her muddy helmet reveling small splotches of brown hair poking through all the grime. "Yeah, I know, you're pretty knowledgeable kid, you some kinda nature survival guy or something?"

Shirou shrugged. "I like to think of myself as a fairly well traveled and worldly man."

Shirou carefully kept his eyes off of the item, but he distinctly noted with suspicion that slung on her chest was what looked like a very dirty and weathered modern rifle.

He then turned around and looked at a tree and motioned for her to undress.

The woman snorted and waved her hand flippantly. "I'm just gonna go down to my skivvies, we'll have to look around to communicate and it's not like you can see much in this dark anyway." "Do you know of a nearby source of water?" she inquired while stripping the muddy vest and shirt off.

"Yes." Shirou replied and pulled out his phone. Activating a flashlight app he raised it up and then quickly turned it off to act as a beacon.

The woman brushed off the immediate grit and grime from her upper torso and pulled her vest and shirt into a wad then slung her rifle behind her shoulder and followed behind her strange red haired rescuer. He occasionally flashed his light to let her know his position as he navigated his way back to the water source using the notches he'd carved into the tree bark with his machete earlier.

Eventually they came to a small stream that would lead back to the waterfall that Shirou had initially fallen from. The woman dropped her gear, untied her boots then kicked them off and shimmied her hips out of the muddy pants then finally peeled them off. And unslinging her rifle she took a forlorn look at it. "This my rifle, there are many like it but this one is mine.." She muttered shaking her head before gripping the front of it in her right hand and wading out into the stream. She turned back to the red haired man to see him making the beginnings of a fire pit.

"You can keep your eyes the other way for this one, gimme about ten minutes and I'll be done." She said quietly before crossing her arms and shimmying a bit and her two under garments floated to the surface next to her.

Shirou respectfully kept his eyes on his task and he poked around using his phone light to test for kindle wood.

He eventually took the paracord and two sticks and set up a spinning system on a small rock, but this was just for show. Under his breath he muttered a small phrase and drew into the rock with a lightly glowing finger. Silently thanking Bazett for her instruction even if he wasn't the most adept of students, he quickly head a small ember going and by the time his companion walked over to the pit the warmth and light of a small fire had emerged to combat the cold of the misty night.

In the light of the fire Shirou could now make out his brunette companion in muddy camouflage with a back sack, plate carrier vest, helmet and what now appeared to be an M4 rifle. He noted with some surprise the American flag patch on her right shoulder. On her left she had several patches but what stuck out to him even though the residual mud and grime was a simple yellow and black Ranger tab.

"She moved to stand in front of him still looking somewhat grimy, but far more recognizable and gave a sharp salute. "Thank you for your assistance; I'm First Lieutenant Rachel Taver of the United States Army."

Shirou blinked in surprise. In his mind was whirring with possibilities.

This changed everything.

He groaned internally as he realized his job had just become far more difficult. Before his original plan was to take advantage of the already common use of magic in this world and go all out in his mission to rescue the hostages, but with the apparent military presence of forces from his world and Western ones at that…

The secrecy of magic would have to be preserved. This would limit his ability to move freely.

On the other hand, he could claim to be a denizen of this world and get away with his use of magic, but then he would have to explain his knowledge of the language as well as use of modern technology. Furthermore, he had no way of getting back to their world if the Gate was damaged in the blast.

However, this could also prove fortuitous as American Military forces could provide resources and a potential safe haven for those he rescued. One of the things he was concerned about was where he was going to house the people he managed to rescue while he looked for the others. He was not under the illusion that they would all be in one easy location to rescue in one fell swoop. No he would need to go out and collect them from various locales, and he would need support to make it work.

He quickly made his decision. "Er, I'm Emiy- eh I mean Shirou Emiya, I'm a Japanese citizen."

The woman widened her eyes in surprise. "W-what!? Japanese.. that's.. what are you doing out here!?"

Shirou scratched the back of his head. "Well, I could ask you the same Taver-san? I find it quite strange that I would find a foreign military presence in an alternate world."

The woman frowned. "Unfortunately, that's confidential. We are currently conducting a covert Military operation that I'm not a liberty to discuss. Once we rendezvous with the Support team we'll see what we can do about getting you back to Japan in one piece."

Shirou shook his head. "That won't be necessary. I have my own reasons to be here. Perhaps you aren't aware of it but Japan was attacked earlier today by an army from beyond this Gate. They took prisoners and I have come to help rescue them. I'm somewhat of a mercenary."

Rachel recoiled back. "Attacked? As in an assault.. on Japanese soil?!"

Shirou nodded. "It happened right in the middle of Tokyo.. they had to call in the JSDF, I would imagine the entire world knows about it by now."

The brunette woman paled as she stumbled back and sat down. "That's.. insane.. the whole world knows about this region?" She then shook her head and took in the man sitting beside her with more scrutiny, "I see, so you're a contractor.. that makes sense now. We've got some PMC guys back on base working with us. You seem pretty competent. There might be an opening for you if you're interested. Lord knows we're understaffed here. This is supposed to be a clandestine Operation, if the whole world knows about the Black Zone. I can only imagine what the geezers at command are gonna do."

"Black Zone?" shirou inquired.

The woman bit her lip before looking at him and sighing. "Look, you seem like you're fairly involved in this so I'll throw you a bone, but you didn't hear any of this from me you got it?"

Shirou nodded slowly and moved some more wood onto fire.

His American companion continued. "Recently several Ships have begun disappearing in US trade route waters. The Coast Guard was sent out to investigate, when they supposedly ran into a massive pirate fleet. Sailing out of a giant cloud of mist, they were reported to be like something out of a cheesy pirate flick, wooden ships with cannons and swords, talking parrots the whole nine yards. And there were thousands of them. We got transmissions from the ships sent out, but we lost contact shortly thereafter."

"The Navy was then sent in and we discovered a strange structure sitting in between two small islands. It appeared to be a gateway of some sort, but it was damaged, possibly in the fighting. Either way at certain times, the ships could sail through, but they couldn't come back. We found that when the Gate was active anything could go through but there was no way back out. Communications was spotty as well."

"Eventually it was determined to send in a small set of First in last out Teams to conduct surveillance, bust also search and rescue operation."

She paused to catch he breath then continued. "We call this area the Black Zone."

"Several teams have been sent in but the bulk of our forces are still on standby until we can stabilize the gate for predictable travel and know more about what's going on. In the meantime, it's mainly a joint Special Operations mission comprising mostly of small teams from the USMC, Army, and Naval forces, with some Private Security guys thrown in. The whole thing is kind of a Black Op as technically we aren't supposed to be here and this place doesn't really exist to the general public"

Shirou absently pointed to her shoulder. "And you would be an Army Ranger?"

The girl frowned slightly and looked up at the night sky. "Well, not exactly. Originally I was part of a small task force in the USMC called the Lioness FET program. We were officially combat support, but we ended up working in heavy action pretty often during the beginning phase of Operation Enduring Freedom."

"However, about a year ago President Dirrel instituted up a new policy change. Women were to be permitted into all combat roles provided they passed the requisite qualifications."

"Those of us in FET combat units were the first to be put into tests for the program, and I was selected to attend my year's class at Ranger school. I transferred to the Army for the opportunity and after successfully completing the course and graduating I became one of only three women to have received my Ranger Tab."

Rachel rubbed her neck. "But, here's the thing though, technically speaking, until you are assigned to the 75th Airborne you aren't technically a Ranger. I received my tab but that's really a Leadership School for leading small team combat units."

Shirou blinked a few times surprised by the info dump. "Um.. right, so you're not a Ranger then?"

Rachel frowned. "Well if you ask me.. I consider myself one. Unfortunately, my team and I were nearly wiped out by a monster. I don't really know how I survived to be honest. There are so many things here that can kill you it's ridiculous."

The red haired man sighed and then leaned back on his folded arms. "I see, I'm sorry to hear that. When I saw the prisoners being taken during the attack on Ginza, I just felt like I had to try to help them. Since being here I've come to realize I might be in a little over my head. But even still, I don't think I was wrong."

Rachel turned to look at him and grinned slightly. "Well, Japan is an ally, and we are working as a search and rescue mission. I'm sure we can do something to help you out if we can ever get off this island. I've been here for almost a week now. My team was ambushed by some kind of flying griffon thing. I woke up in a nest on a cliff here and managed to slip away, but I haven't found a way out of here yet. The thing grabbed one of our gear chests, but I'm almost out of supplies and honestly if you hadn't come along I'd probably of ended up dead in that quick sand. So uh, thanks Emiya."

Shirou smiled. "My pleasure Taver-san, would you like me to take first watch?" The woman was about to protest when she realized her eyelids had been drooping during the conversation. "I guess I am exhausted. "I don't think I've gotten more than 10 hours of sleep in the last week."

Shirou nodded and she pulled out a silver metallic Mylar blanket from her rucksack. "Wake me in 5 hours and I'll take over. If you see something hostile use the bayonet, the rifle's been out of Ammo for days."

Shirou glanced at the muddy M4 and nodded. He watched as the exhausted American woman fell back laying her head on the sack and was asleep in moments.

00000000000000000000000000000000000

Rachel awoke to the sound and smell of cooking fish. She slowly sat up groggily but as her mind fired up she looked up to see the morning sun was already in the sky showing that she had slept long past the 5 hour limit. She frowned as she saw the Japanese man crouching over the fire and slowly turning his makeshift spit.

"Good morning, breakfast will be ready in a few minutes." He said jovially.

"I told you to wake me in five, what would you have done if we'd both nodded off?" the woman barked out.

Shirou shrugged. "I had a nice long nap yesterday morning on the bus ride to Ginza. You on the other hand were severely sleep deprived. You needed the rest."

The woman narrowed her eyes "Che If you were in my unit you'd be pushin right now."

Shirou smirked. "Well, it's a good thing I'm not a soldier under your command, or part of your country for that matter."

0000000000000000000000000000000000

* * *

Shirou and Rachel eventually finished their breakfast and moved on. He led her back to the small cave where he'd emerged but as he suspected there was no sign of a gate or opening. Whatever strange device that mage had thrown at him had had some sort of transformative power and it had opened a temporary rift.

The red haired man frowned. It was possible that he was now much farther from rescuing his fellow countrymen then he'd have been if he simply favored stealth instead of trying to rush the retreating croup.

The news that the Unites States had entered this strange world as well and from the looks of it from a second opening was unsettling. He could only guess how the Japanese government back home was taking things and the actions they would take could be catastrophic. No doubt the Clocktower and Atlas would be sending their own expeditionary forces in as well.

"Well, no use sitting around complaining." The young magic exclaimed.

Rachel then took him back up to the abandoned griffon nest which contained a small supply chest, in it were used up ammo belts and a few extended magazines, but also a set of extra uniforms and boots. There were no extra plate carriers or helmets, but at least he could get out of his nearly ruined Spartan cosplay and into something warm and dry.

Quickly pulling on a small back t shirt and some camouflage pants, Shirou laced up a set of standard issue boots and then pulled on a matching camouflage jacket and rolled up the sleeves.

Glancing at the American flag patch on his jacket he raised an eyebrow. "I'm not going to get put on your Youtube for stolen valor right? At the very least we can call it borrowed?" he quipped snarkily.

The woman just shook her head and grabbed a spare uniform before changing her nametag and special patches out and then leaving to change for a few minutes.

By the time she returned she found the bored Japanese man reenacting American movie scenes with an imaginary rifle.

She chuckled in amusement and motioned for him to follow her. Shirou took one last look at the chest and noted that the extra supplies had been pretty much used up with the uniform change. He stuffed the remains of his previous outfit in a black trash back and crammed it into his back pack then followed after her.

She led him to a small clearing where she'd begun the preliminary work on a small raft like contraption. Now with four sets of hands the work would go much more quickly. Over the next few days he and Rachel continued the work and eventually the project began to actually resemble a small raft that had a decent chance of being able to float while supporting the two of them.

To Shirou's surprise Rachel turned out to be quite knowledgeable in its constructing.

"I got a degree in engineering and my uncle was a boat maker. I was originally going to be involved in humanitarian construction efforts after the FET program, but I got drafted into the Athena initiative." She shrugged her shoulders and finished off the knot she was tying keeping the cut lumber in place. Unfortunately, her combat knife and bayonet were now quite dull from the lumber work so Shirou was using a flat stone to try to regain their edge as Rachel continued with their raft.

Shirou had already brought up the idea of a signal to female Ranger but she'd quickly explained that the first few days she'd been marooned here were spent attempting to signal her comrades. Not only had she burnt through all her flares and supplies, several pirate vessels had been lured in by the sight and she'd had to hide and waste the rest of her ammunition in order to drive them off.

As Shirou continued to sharpen he looked over to see the American woman taking a swig of water from her canteen and wiping her brow in the sweltering midday heat.

As fate would have it however their raft construction was abruptly stopped when a large explosion rocked the area near their small fire was set up.

Shirou and Rachel quickly leapt to their feet and rushed over to a small hill where they could look out on the bay.

There they saw several streaks of cannon balls hurling through the air in their direction.

"Hmm, those pirates you claim to have driven off seem to be looking for a bit of payback."

The woman bit her lip in frustration and nearly had a break down as a stray cannonball smashed into their unfinished raft destroying several days of hard work.

Rachel exploded screaming out obscenities and gelding threats to all that would hear, but Shirou just sighed and motioned to the small life boats that were en route to the island's beach.

"Well, the raft is gone but there's several life boats headed our way, with any luck we can procure a few of them and then we just need to slip by the main pirate ship."

The American woman looked at him with a deadpan expression. "And how exactly do you propose we do that? The thing is going to be looking for any escape attempts and they'll sink us before we make it a mile from shore."

Shirou simply pushed her head down into the small bush and watched as several men in ridiculously stereotypical pirate outfits walked over and examined the destroyed raft and recently extinguished fire.

The men grunted out in some slurring strange language before they spread out to look for the survivors they assumed were currently on the run.

As soon as they exited the small campsite Shirou turned to his companion and motioned to the beach before shouldering his backpack and taking off at a dead sprint.

The two of them made it to the beach without trouble and Shirou quickly grabbed some large leaves and a rock and set it in an empty life boat before cutting the anchor line and pushing it in a random direction.

He then cut the line of the next two boats and then turned to his American companion.

"Well, Taver-san, it seems as though one of us will have to act as a distraction while the other slips by. Please use this opportunity to regroup with your commanders and if possible, inform them of the captured Ginza prisoners."

The brunette began to protest but Shirou simply held his hand up to stop her.

He then gave a mock salute, which in his current American Army uniform didn't look nearly as out of place as it should've. "It was a pleasure serving with you. Lt Taver."

Despite the woman's objections the red haired magus pushed the boat out and hopped in immediately taking up the oars at both sides and started off in a random direction.

He saw Rachel do the same and she called out to him as she moved in the opposite way, but she was too far for and the cannon fire now being directed at them was too loud for him to hear her, but he was able to read her lip.

"Rangers lead the way. Eh?" he repeated aloud.

Hearing a crash he looked over to see that his initial dummy boat had been sunk by cannon fire.

Observing this he then moved his attention to the colossal pirate ship in the distance and summoning several dozen large claymores in the sky above it he barely felt the drain on his massive Od reserves.

He willed the blades to drop down like stakes slamming into the deck of the Pirate ship. Immediately the fire quickly turned to his boat allowing Rachel to escape through the narrow gap in maneuvering ships.

Shirou created a second volley this time using smaller swords with slight alteration to increase their sharpness. He smirked. "I see that Gaia's degradation is considerable weakened in this world. Interesting.. That's quite fortunate for me."

The second volley of swords slammed down on the hapless pirates and they began to cry out about Sorcery and soon enough cannonballs began to rain down around the rowing magus.

Watching Rachel fade away into the horizon he smirked and began rowing at an insane pace. His reinforced muscles flexed and suddenly the boat picked up speed and he started shooting through the water as cannonballs dropped all around him.

Eventually exiting the cannon's range Shirou decided to finish off the pirates and prevent anyone else from falling into their clutches. He briefly considered commandeering their ship, but he'd had to damage it in order to gain their attention and he didn't really want to deal with the attention a notorious pirate vessel would bring, especially since according to Rachel the entire sea was pretty much ruled by Piracy, with only a small resistance being put forth by the local Naval forces.

With a frown he stood up and formed a medium sized black bow and a small rapier shimmered before twisting into a more aerodynamic shape.

He then launched the sword arrow at Mach 2.

The displaced air formed a trench of separated water that created a small wave sending his boat bobbing up and down for a few seconds but even before the air released the target ship was torn in half by the sheer speed of the glowing bullet he'd launched.

The two halves quickly began to sink and he made out the small forms of several pirates jumping overboard to try to swim to the island a few miles away.

He sighed, let his weapons fade away and then sat down to begin rowing at a more leisurely pace and hoped his E rank luck would come through for him since he hadn't the faintest clue of where he was going.

00000000000000000000000000000000000

* * *

Somehow, Shirou finally caught a break and after only a day of rowing he was spotted by a small fishing ship. He'd happily accepted their offer to take him to the nearest port town in exchange for his assistance as they were severely undermanned having lost several crew members in the last big storm.

Shirou was also pleasantly surprised though a bit confused that they seemed to speak a strangely accented variation of Japanese. After another four days at sea the ship finally pulled into port and though he was grateful for the save he had to admit he'd had quite enough of the sea for a while.

From the port he'd learned from asking around that a small slave trade auction was to be held in the nearby capitol. Deciding to investigate what could be his first lead he'd worked a few days in a local shop to earn a paycheck and some food, then he'd set out on the road to the capitol where the rumors had originated.

Along the way he came across a chubby man in an expensive silk shirt being pressed up against his carriage with his hand around the arm of a petite woman in rags.

Surrounding him were a group of six enormous men with axes and cudgels.

The sweating Nobleman held up his hand allowing the many jeweled rings on his fingers to glint in the sunlight. "Listen, you thugs. I am the great Duke Marcin Barielle, of the Barielle line. We will soon have access to the throne so if you know what's good for you you'll fall to your knees and beg for mercy!"

The men around him chuckled and one threw his axe embedding it into the carriage with a thunk causing an exclamation of fear to emit from within.

The portly man took a step backwards and thrust the woman in rags forwards. "W-wait, alright fine, spare me and you can have this wench, Take them all, or if you like you can take the gold in our chest, just please spare me!" The man's earlier bravado faded in the face of his impending doom and he began to babble incoherently as the men advanced with leers.

Shirou rolled his eyes at the pathetic sight and growled slightly at the man's cowardice and willingness to sacrifice the woman next to him, but he decided to intervene.

"Well now, you all seem to be in the middle of quite the dispute. I do hope I'm not interrupting anything but I was wondering if I might ask any of you gentleman for direction to the capitol Lugunica?"

As he expected the advancing men turned to face him and raised an eyebrow at the strange camouflaged garb he wore.

"That's some fancy threads, ye be wearing their buddy, handem over and we might let ya walk off in yer undies."

Shirou raised an eyebrow. "Hmm, yeah that's not going to happen. I think you might want to reconsider if you're trying to rob me. I'm not exactly what you'd call an easy mark."

The man closest to him ignored this and walked over to the smaller Japanese man and grabbed his head in a beefy palm.

Shirou then pulled the hand down on his head keeping in place and walked forwards creating a wrist lock. The man grunted in pain and began to back up. With a quick twist of his wrist the larger man was sent corkscrewing to the ground. This set off his companions who quickly rushed the young magus.

Shirou evaded a slash from the axe wielding thug and easily chopped the over exposed man in the neck dropping him instantly. Another swung the cudgel at him but Shirou entered inside the arc of power and drove his palm into the man's chin causing him to drop his weapon and stagger backwards. Before he could recover Shirou stomped the man's knee cap and with a sickening crunch his opponent dropped to a knee.

As Shirou moved to finish him off several other thugs launched at him with axes and rusty short swords. Shirou evaded a few slashes moving himself so that the axe wielding man was in-between them and then he swept the thugs leg out and kicked him into his charging partner knocking both of them to the ground.

Now there was only the last robber who was much more hesitant to approach the red haired man having seen him dispatch his comrades so easily.

Shirou smiled good naturedly. "You might want to take you friends and get out of here while you still can. If you choose to stay here and continue this I'm going to cripple you all."

Those that could still move quickly made to retreat shouting unrealistic threats as they did so and a few carried their crippled comrades away. Soon enough they had crossed the small stream and entered into the wooded treeline and disappeared from sight to lick their wounds.

Throughout all of this the chubby Duke merely stared with a wide open mouth. His female comrade looked on in fear as the strangely smiling man in exotic green clothes had just dispatched over six men easily three times his own size.

Shirou turned to the group and eyes the woman in rags still clutched in the fat man's grip. He noted that she had bruising forming on her arm and frowned. Despite this he knew that this world had their own values and though he didn't like it, he couldn't save everyone.

As he moved to continue down the road however, the Duke finally found his voice and he bellowed out to his red haired savior.

"You there, sell sword! I am in need of an escort to the capitol. I shall allow you the honor of being my guard. Be grateful that your life has afforded you such a momentous opportunity."

Shirou turned to look over his shoulder but didn't stop moving. "Hm, sorry sir but I have somewhere to be. I have my own business in the capitol I'm afraid."

The Duke sputtered in indignation. "What! How dare you refuse? Don't you understand who I am?! Whatever business you might have is insignificant in comparison to the task of guarding me you dunce!"

Shirou merely waved him off. "Perhaps, but I'm afraid it holds great importance to me. I'm sure you'll be fine if you stay off the back roads"

The man roared out more insults and orders before the sight of Shirou's walking form beginning to exit the horizon line caused him to panic. "W-wait, alright fine, I'll pay! Name your price and as long as we reach the capitol successfully I'll compensate you in full!"

Shirou waved him off. "No thanks, to be blunt I don't really approve of how you treat your current company."

The man blinked in confusion. "What? You refer to my wenches? They aren't much worth in bed, so they might as well serve as meat shields. It's a slave's duty to obey and lay down their lives for their master after all. A slave's life has already been bought and paid for so of course it's my right to call upon them to sacrifice it."

Shirou narrowed his eyes and turned back around.

The fat man grit his teeth and called out. "Alright fine, if you're so interested in my wenches see to it that we reach the capitol safely and I'll give you one of them."

Shirou paused.

He really didn't want to deal with this slime of a man, but on the other hand those women were undoubtedly suffering. If he left them with the Duke they were going to end up dead or wishing they were in short order. There was also the chance that they might have come from a similar auction and have information regarding the event he was trying to find.

With a sigh the magus turned back and walked up the carriage noting it seemed to be drawn by a blue skinned dragon.

 _Hmm, the dragons that attacked Ginza were black and had wings, but there's no mistaking these creatures for anything else._ Shirou thought to himself,

As he approached the Duke regained his composure and sneered at the young magus. "Hm, very well, let us be off. Make sure I'm safe, cast away your own life in need be." He instructed. Shirou just rolled his eyes and moved to follow the carriage.

The portly man quickly pushed the blonde woman in his arms forwards and back onto the carriage before moving up the steps to take his own place next to a dwarf driver.

With that, they were off.

0000000000000000000000000000000

* * *

Shirou marched into the capitol of Lugunica much later than he would have liked. It seemed the idiot Duke was like a magnet for robbers and he must've had to drive off at least five separate parties in order to reach here, but as it stood he would soon be rid of the man hopefully never to see him again.

As the carriage came to a stop outside a lavish Inn the Duke finally climbed down from his place in the carriage and appraised Shirou disapprovingly. "Hmm, you are a rather poorly dressed young peasant aren't you? Well, a deal's a deal I suppose but I can't have you careening around with one of the wenches I'm known for.. "

He paused as if to think then suddenly he seemed to have a flash of inspiration.

"Ah yes, the beast woman!" He turned to the blonde he'd been holding earlier. "Go and get that filthy animal and bring her out here. Tell her I've grown tired of her and am pawning her off on some sex starved sell sword mercenary."

The blonde slave's eyes widened slightly before nodding subserviently, and she went to do as she was told.

The man went to a small box in the carriage and rummaged around for a bit before finding a weathered scroll of parchment, "Here." He grunted scribbling something on it and tossing it to Shirou. "This is the deed of sale, Congratulations boy, the limp flea bag is your problem now."

As he finished speaking two figures exited the back of the carriage. One of them was the blonde woman from earlier.

The other was…

Well, it looked somewhat like some sort of Rabbit woman. She was quite literally flea ridden though and her fur was shaved in some places, and matted with dirt and dried blood in others. She wore only a few scraps of burlap covering her breasts and waist. The woman had her gaze down and Shirou noted that her left ear was clipped near the middle.

Her shoulder length black hair had small streaks of white in it but it was also filthy and frizzy.

She also looked malnourished and somewhat gaunt and sickly.

Shirou was pulled from his inspection by the Duke roughly grabbing her and un fastening the leather choke collar from around her neck. "Listen up Beast woman, this man here is your new master. You will obey him as you have me. From this day forwards I will have nothing to do with you. Your presence has been a stain on my honor for long enough. I bought you on a whim as I suspected you might be an exotic experience but I must say I have been a sore disappointed. Now then.."

He roughly shoved her into Shirou's arms who caught her with a stone cold frown on his face.

The Duke waved them off flippantly. "Well, you've received your reward, now be off with you the both of you.. And boy just a hint of warning, I'd make sure you get her cleaned up before you take her. And don't be surprised if she just lays there like a dead fish."

Shirou gripped the parchment scroll tightly and looked down at the trembling rabbit woman in his arms.

She was terrified. For all she knew some mercenary had only agreed to guard the Duke if he was given a slave of his own to sate his own perversions.

Shirou took a deep breath and ushered the woman to walk away with him by the shoulders.

Seeing her shivering in his arms Shirou slipped off his US Army jacket and draped it over the beast woman's shoulders as the two made their way to a more moderate Inn.

As they moved along the thinning throng of people heading home for the day he removed his arm from her shoulder and looked down at her huddled form.

"Are you hungry?" he inquired as they came near a small fruit vendor.

The Bunny woman kept her gaze downwards but slowly shook her head.

Shirou nodded and moved to pass on when he saw a young raven haired woman struggling to carry two bags full of fruit emerge from the cloth coverings of the stall.

The food in the bags was piled up quite high and the top contents were threatening to spill out at any moment.

Shirou motioned for his comrade to stop for a moment and approached the struggling woman.

"Pardon me maam, but that load looks quite cumbersome.. would you like some assistance?"

The woman poked her head over the mountain of groceries and turned her dark purple eyes upon the approaching pair. "Oh my, a gentleman in this day and age? What a pleasant surprise.. Why thank you young man, I was a bit worried if I was going to make it to my carriage with all these before the rain tonight."

Shirou looked up at the darkening clouds coming in from the east and nodded in understanding. "Well then, it's a good thing I was here. Please allow me to help you with your burden."

The woman smiled warmly and handed him one of the bags allowing her to settle her remaining load more comfortably lower on her abdomen.

The woman stepped forwards in her high heel pumps and her single tailed braid swished from side to side as she motioned to the corner of a nearby cart. "It should be just over this way. I told my driver to meet me next to the edge of the Salazaar district."

Shirou nodded and motioned for his attendant to follow.

The woman took note of this and remarked "Ara, that's a unique sight for this area. Is that a warrior bunny from the north eastern continent of Falmart? I'd head the Saderan Empire had all but wiped out or enslaved the warrior bunny clans poor things.."

Shirou blinked in surprise and noticed the brief look of surprise on his comrade's face before she quickly hid her expression and looked away in shame.

"Falmart?" Shirou questioned. "Is that a faraway nation?"

"Oh yes." the fruit bearing woman replied. "Falmart is all the way to the west on the other side of the Sea of Darkness. It's currently almost entirely under the control of the Saderan Empire. It's quite the journey your friend must've taken to end up here."

Shirou nodded. "Yeah, I've recently found myself in a complicated situation."

The strange woman merely curled her lips in a knowing smile. "There's nothing to be ashamed of. Slavery can be quite an unsavory practice, but you seem to be the best sort of master she could likely acquire. I'm sure she's quite lucky to have found you."

Shirou frowned slightly. "This place is still taking some time to get used to." He admitted running a hand through his red hair and effortlessly shifted the bag into a one handed grip on his chest.

"Oh you're not from around here either?" she inquired as they turned the corner.

Shirou shook his head. "No, I'm afraid I'm quite far from home as well. I'm currently searching for several people. I believe they might have been kidnapped and I'm trying to rescue them."

The woman's purple eyes seem to light up. "Oh, my a young hero, how dashing and romantic! Well you've certainly swooped in and saved this damsel in distress, so you're off to quite a good start."

Just then a small carriage, this time pulled by a horse pulled up and the woman turned around to face her helper. "And do the Hero and his charge require a place to stay tonight? I would be delighted to have you both stay with me if you need lodgings, it's the least I could do to repay you for such kindness."

The red haired magus shook his head and leaned his head in to place the bag of fruit down on the plush seating before holding the door open and offering his hand to help the raven haired woman into the carriage. "I thank you for the offer, but we couldn't impose on you like that. I have quite a bit of work to do tomorrow and I'll need to be up bright and early."

The woman settled into the cushion and smoothed down the purple fringe of her black gown.

"I see, very well then. I wish you luck young hero. And you as well mighty warrior bunny, do take care to hold on to your master. He seems to be a keeper." With that she winked and closed the carriage door.

Shirou blinked a few times in surprise at the quip and to his amusement he found the light skin of his bunny companion actually darkening slightly in a blush.

The carriage then started to move forwards with the gentle clop of the horse's hooves on the cobblestone road being amplified by the sound of a gentle drizzle beginning to descend.

"Come on." Shirou said. "It looks like the sky's gonna drop any second now"

The two waved to the retreating carriage and continued briskly on their way to the nearby Inn just as the drizzle began to turn into a full on rain fall.

It took all of Shirou's remaining savings, but he managed to pay for the room and frowned when he noted there was only one bed.

The black and white haired woman standing next to him seemed to note this as well as she gave a slight sigh of acceptance and finally raised her golden eyes to face him.

There was an awkward silence for a moment before Shirou scratched his head and suggested that she head over and take a bath. The indoor bath was quite primitive, but at least it was better than sleeping in the grime and dirt currently caking the poor creature.

It was nearly 45 minutes later when the warrior bunny emerged from the bath looking much more presentable, though still quite malnourished. She had discarded her cloth bikini for a soft white robe left for the Inn room's guests.

Her golden iris' turned to the bed and she took a breath before bringing her hands up to tug at the top of the robe.

"Emiya Shirou." He blurted suddenly. "That's my name what's yours?"

The woman seemed taken aback by this and titled her head to the side quizzically as she dropped her hands. She then spoke slowly and raspily as if her voice hadn't been used in a while.

"M-my name?" She murmured inquisitively.

Shirou nodded. "Yes, what is your name?"

The woman seemed to give this some thought before nodding. "My name is Parna, Master."

"Hn, it's nice to meet you Parna. I must apologize for the circumstances however."

Shirou motioned to the room around them. "You can stay here for tonight and get cleaned up, but I don't intend to keep anyone a slave, so I will free you first thing tomorrow."

This caused an unexpected reaction of horror and hysterical terror in the up till this point docile rabbit woman. "No please master, please don't discard me! I don't want to go back to those days. Please don't send me away, I'll do anything you ask, so please.." she tapered off hysterically as she began to sob.

Shirou opened his mouth slightly but no words escaped. He stared in confusion at the broken woman before him and narrowed his eyes in anger at the thought of what this poor creature had been forced to endure.

It seemed that she had become dependent on her status as a slave, having had her pride and self-worth crushed to dust.

"Alright Parna-san, I understand." Shirou smiled warmly and sank down a knee.

"This is my oath to you. Until the day when you no longer need me, I will not abandon you."

The woman's golden eyes still glimmering with tears tuned to stare into his own striking light brown ones and she smiled softly. "Thank you master."

Shirou scratched his head and looked away. "Eh you really don't have to call me that. Shirou is fine."

The woman blinked an few times and then nodded.

Shirou then took a look around before nodding and head towards the bathroom himself. "You can go ahead and take the bed. You need it far more than me. I'll sleep on the floor tonight. Go ahead and get to bed."

The woman frowned and looked like she wanted to object, but instead she lowered her head submissively and nodded.

Shirou quickly stripped down and stepped into the small tub provided. He scrubbed himself as best he could with no soap available and gave an amused glance to the pile of camouflaged clothing sitting on the wooden floor.

"The Americans huh.. well this is gonna get messy."

He sank down into the water and relaxed his muscles, enjoying the brief moment of peace. With his luck it wouldn't likely be lasting for too much longer.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000

The weathered old man sitting behind the metal desk tapped his finger on the files before him. Three figures standing at parade rest patiently waited for him to continue.

He narrowed his eyes and nodded. "We are currently in the planning stages, but it is highly likely that our forces will be sent beyond the Gate and into the Special Region. Thus we need all the personnel we can muster."

"However" the man frowned slightly. "I have to wonder why a foreigner would be so interested in the affairs of our nation."

The short red haired woman standing in a professional business suit didn't hesitate. "In the past several years I have made my home here in this country." "While it may not be my country of origin it was my friends and family that were attacked and put at risk by the actions of these invaders. I simply want to protect what I hold dear" she replied smoothly.

The man stared at her for a few moments before turning to the other three occupants.

A short black haired young man in a leather jacket and jeans stood to the left of a taller woman with long red hair in a simple white t-shirt and denim shorts.

They both nodded and repeated their colleague's position.

The grizzly man considered them for a few more moments before finally nodding and closing the manila folder on his desk.

"Very well, you are to report to basic training in three days at Camp Nayoro"

"Cadets Aoko Aozaki, Bazett Fraga McRemitz, and Godou Kurokami. I welcome you to JSDF."

* * *

AN.

Another interesting point to this story is I have decided to add in some Re: Zero… whatever that long name is. Anyway, I originally intended to operate in Falmart and have Shirou heavily diverge from Canon and do stuff with characters and environments we hadn't seen before. The inclusion of American military forces was planned from the beginning as well as exploring the idea that there were other Gates in different areas. You can see foreshadowing's of this in the fic summary.

However, after watching the main character of Re: Zero for a few episodes and just shaking my head in disgust I have to do something to save his harem from him. They need to be poached, for their own good, but I don't want to have to write ANOTHER entirely new Xover story so I figured, meh I'll just tie them into this one. They're both fantasy world's right? Plus it gives me more antagonists I can throw at Shirou to give him something to fight.

On an interesting note, with this second chapter update, I believe my story is now officially the most fleshed out fanfic in the genre having now surpassed Cardinal Grief's in plot distance.

On another note there was actually supposed to be a lot more to this chapter as I wanted him to meet Emilia and deal with the first Boss fight in the fic, but this thing was just getting too massive as it is. Thus, I decided to break it up into two chapters instead of one.

Up next is a new Fate/HS DXD idea that you probably haven't seen before.

Then.. the next chapter to this one

Then.. probably the next chap of Fate Lagoon, these updates should actually be in a reasonable time frame as I have quite a bit of it done already.

Next chapter: To Catch a Thief

Reviews are always appreciated.


	3. To Catch a Thief

Fate And thus WE fought there

A/N: Alrighty then, my next chapter has been up for only a few hours and already I'm seeing a slew of reviews come in. Thank you everyone I appreciate any and all feedback.

So far it seems to be mostly semi negative, this is not entirely unexpected. I don't like being conventional and going where everyone else does.

Several people have commented on the lack of Rory and rest of the Gate cast. This is because I want Shirou to establish his own faction, so by the time he meets the main cast and reunites with his group in the JSDF, he will have an effective powerbase to operate from.

However, every time you don't follow safe convention and do what everyone expects and loves you will risk some negativity from people who don't like the differences or changes you make. It's unfortunately a risk you always take.

But here's the beauty of fanfiction. As someone noted, there are many other Gate crossovers and they all more or less follow the traditional, either replace Itami or act as tag alongs through the manga plot. If that's your cup of tea, there are a lot of options available for you. I just think that something fresh and new where you can't really predict what's going to happen next is more fun to read.

Rory will make an appearance in my fic, but I'm still deciding on how she comes into play and whether her alliance is with Shirou or Itami.

For those worried about bringing Aoko into the Special Region. Oh my, wait till you see what I have planned. The BLUE gunner, and the wielder of Fragarach ARE the Emiya clan scouting team.

Shirou's team back home has some real heavy hitters that will probably be entering well into the realm of ludicrous firepower. There was actually a small peak at one of them last chapter for those of you who caught it. I also have a companion fic partially written detailing exactly HOW Shirou was able to acquire his most powerful Nasu-verse allies. I'll also remind you that both Gate and Re: Zero have their own god-tier characters to contend with.

In terms of Gate characters, I'm surprised no one's mentioned Parna yet. She is a canon Gate character , and I gave several references and allusions to the Gate characters that will be coming into play.

For those informing me that RE: zero isn't a harem, then well my perception of it differs. In any case in this story things will go quite a bit differently. Shirou does not have the Return by Death ability, nor does he really need it.

Perhaps Subaru gets better in the light novels, but I wouldn't know. I've read the wiki and watched several episodes of the anime. Based on these observations I've formed my viewpoints

It also works out better for me because one of the problems I would've had to face is if the US were operating in the Gate world as well, why didn't the JSDF ever run into them in canon.

This way they have a whole different continent on the other side of the world to do their thing in, and Shirou can make his own way without tracing the steps of Itami. The plots will eventually converge have no fear.

Thanks to all of you for your input.

Summary: One day a gate appeared. What emerged from it could only be called monsters, but there are those who prey on monsters, and that gate was only the first. Hear the bells of freedom ring; from sea to shining sea.

Disclaimer: I don't own any of the anime or intellectual properties that are portrayed or mentioned in this fic with the exception of the various OC's that will come into play.

Font Key:

"normal speech"

' _Thought's, and flashbacks'_

" **Techniques: and moments of impact"**

I'm also going back to my 000000000000000000000000 as line breaks since they transfer better than the lines in the Doc editor.

* * *

Chapter 3: To Catch a Thief

00000000000000000000000

* * *

Shirou was up bright and early. In fact, technically he was up well before the sun fully rose. He wrote a small letter to the still snoozing Parna informing her to wait here for him to return from his information gathering, and then he pulled on the black tshirt and camo pants and laced up his boots.

Stepping out of the Inn into the cool morning air he took a look around and noticed several stalls just setting up and he decided to take a quick walk around to see if he could find some information.

Moving around the corner of a small alleyway he noticed the fruit stand he'd stopped at the night before and a gruff looking man with green hair hidden by a large bandanna and a goatee was lifting up a box of fresh, juicy looking fruit and setting it into place next to the other assortment of wares.

"Good morning, sir, would you like some help setting up?" Shirou walked over and waved to the working man.

"Eh." The shop owner replied. "Oh it's the kid who acted all chivalrous for the rich chick from last night. Do you have some kinda community service duty you're trying to finish off?"

Shirou shook his head. "Not at all, I just like helping people."

The man raised an eyebrow and shrugged. "Well, if that's the case let me tell you right now." He picked up a knife with a slice of Appa skewered on the tip and pointed it at him. "I aint paying ya or nothing, but if you wanna waste your morning away I won't complain."

Shirou gave a beaming smile. "Certainly, what can I help you with?"

The man popped the fruit slice in his mouth and pointed to a box of bananas and instructed him to take the bunch and tear off the individual pieces and stack them in an empty box to the right.

Shirou moved to do so and as he worked he pleasantly commented. "I just recently arrived in town so I'm still a bit confused about how everything works, but isn't there more people on the streets at this time of day than usual?"

The man snorted. "It because of the Selection, every merchant and peddler worth his salt is trying to take advantage of the commotion and price inflation to make their profit."

Shirou pulled apart the final banana on the bunch and reached down to pick up another. "Selection? Is that some sort of election?"

The man shrugged and took a knife sharpener. "You could say that. Right now we are waiting on the final contestant, but once they're found, the council will determine who will be the next King of Lugunica."

"Oh, that does sound important." Shirou remarked casually.

"Yeah" the shop owner continued. "A lot of the big wigs from all over are coming to see and try to get in good with the one who will be king. Right now it's a gamble. Several different factions are all vying for control, and if you back the wrong one you end up losing a lot of power and political sway. But on the other hand if the candidate you pledge yourself to ends up winning, it should be smooth sailing, at least for the foreseeable future."

Just then a small green haired little girl came bounding down the cobblestone road quickly followed by a woman with purple hair.

The man put down his knife and turned to look at his family with a smile. "Ah but that all doesn't mean much to folks like us just trying to get by. Whoever wins or loses really has no bearing on us either way. Nothing ever really changes no matter who's in power." He lifted the little girl up onto his shoulders.

The red haired magus noted the little girl had curiously turned her attention to him and he smiled taking two bananas and throwing them into the air lightly he began to juggle them while looking up.

He heard the exclamation of wonder and joy from the small child posted on her father's shoulders and the gruff rebuff from the man. "Hey now, don't damage the wares." But Shirou could tell there was no real bite to the order.

He shifted his eyes to the green haired girl and her mother chuckled and grabbed an appa and a pear and lightly tossed them to Shirou. The impromptu juggler quickly worked them into his rotation and soon was juggling different pieces of fruit in a circle as the small child clapped happily.

Her father rebuked his wife halfheartedly and a ghost of smile could be seen on his lips as he witnessed his daughter's glee at the spectacle.

Finally to finish the trick off Shirou carefully fed the fruit pieces back into their respective individual trays until a lone banana sat in his hands and he smoothly peeled it with his off hand before presenting it like a flower to the clapping child.

"Wow, do it again, do it again!" she exclaimed happily.

"Not now sunshine, this young man has to get back to work." The mother bowed to Shirou and smiled kindly. "Thank you for entertaining her, I'm sure she will be demanding an encore all day."

Shirou nodded and returned to his original work.

A few minutes later she took the small child in her arms and walked off to go about her daily activities.

The shop owner turned to his red haired helper and sighed. "Well, thanks for helping out and keeping my little girl amused. You might have a position as a court jester with that routine. Can you do backflips?"

Shirou let out an amused chuckle. "I'm sure that would be a perfectly dignified profession, but I'm afraid I have my own reasons for being here."

"Oh?" the man inquired. "And what brings you to the capitol if you weren't aware of the Selection goin on?"

Shirou's expression slightly darkened. "Actually, I believe several comrades of mine from my homeland have been kidnapped, and I suspect they might have been sold into slavery. I recently heard there was some sort of underground auction going on in the next few days and I was hoping to find some information to take to the royal guards and hopefully have it shut down and the people rescued."

The green haired man frowned slightly and placed his hands on his waist, "Oh, that's going to be a bit complicated. While technically slavery is illegal in Lugunica for the common people, the nobility kind of has their own rule set for the matter. Several of the Royal candidate's family lines actually endorse it so it's pretty unlikely the guards will do anything against them."

"Sorry to say kid, but you're better off just letting it go."

"Let it go?" Shirou repeated with a frown then shook his head. "I'm sorry I can't accept that. All that is necessary for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing. If everyone felt like that then the world would be full of nothing but darkness. That's not the world I want to live in."

The man stared at him with a deadpan expression. "Wow, you really are some kinda wanna be hero aren't you?" He sighed and scratched his cheek with a lone finger. "Well, I don't know how much help it'll be, but I'll keep an ear to the ground for you and let you know if anything pops up."

Shirou bowed to the man and thanked him before begin shooed off.

As he was leaving however he heard the man call him and then a small bag was thrown at his head. He easily caught it and looked inside to see the assortment of fruits sitting in a pile.

"Go ahead and take those and get going, my wife would never let me hear the end of it if I didn't do at least do that much."

Shirou grinned and took a juicy appa out of the bag and bit into it as he walked away.

The sun was now beginning to rise up and cast its light over the rapidly filling capitol streets and Shirou made his way back to the inn and discovered Parna was still sound asleep. He left her a few pieces of fruit on the stand next to the bed, and then left a message informing her to stay put till he returned with the Inn attendant.

He decided to head back the way he came and see if anyone on the street was gossiping, when he saw a flash of yellow dart down the street and he instinctively activated his Archer eyes. The blur slowed to a creeping crawl of a young blonde girl running in slow motion towards an unaware silver haired girl who looked around 17 years of age.

Shirou watched with a frown as the blonde neatly pick pocketed the Silver haired girl who only now finally registered something was wrong. He was about to intervene when he saw the silver haired girl stretch her hand out and begin launching what appeared to be some ice elemental magic at the young thief.

He immediately bolted into action charging forwards and yelling out in alarm as the Ice chunks missed their target and slammed into nearby wall and archway. He dove in and pushed a homeless man and an elderly couple away from the wall just as the blue icy magic bursts slammed into it.

Thanks to Shirou's intervention the small group evaded getting crushed when the icy blast hit the spot they would've been standing in. Rubble from the destroyed wall fell down but Shirou managed to roll to the side to avoid it saving himself as well.

As time sped up again he could hear the sound of people turning to see the spectacle and clapping applause for the impressive save.

"Oh my goodness, I'm so sorry are you alright?" The silver aired girl had run over momentarily abandoning her chase and made to check on the people she'd nearly hit with her magic.

Shirou rose up with a sigh and patted himself down before turning to the elderly couple still I shock on the ground. "I'm fine; these folks were the ones who almost got turned into ice cubes. Are you alright sir?"

The old man shook himself out of hi stupor and took the offered hand back to his feet. "Ah yes, thank you." He then turned to the sheepish girl standing next to Shirou.

"Young lady, do you have any idea how dangerous it is to just be throwing around magic all willy nilly. You ought to take more care in the future for your surroundings. If this young man hadn't been here I don't know what we would've done."

The girl nodded with a blush of embarrassment. "I-I'm sorry sir, you're right I'll try to be more careful in the future."

The man's wife finally got back to her feet as well and touched him on the shoulder. "Now dear, don't make the poor girl feel any worse than she already does. Let's go on and get to breakfast, I think this strapping young man can take it from here."

The man let out a cough and turned with his wife to head back onto the street proper.

The girl then turned to see Shirou and took in his strange black shirt and Camo combination. "Thank you so much for helping them. I wasn't thinking clearly. I just had something really important to me stolen and I just reacted."

Shirou nodded "Yeah I saw it happen. I was going to help, but then when I saw you getting ready to start freezing everything I had to minimize the damage. I saw what she looked like though, if you'd like some help finding her."

The girl took a step back in surprise. "You'd really help me? After all that?"

Shirou smiled and scratched his neck. "Sure, helping people who are in trouble is kinda my thing."

The girl blinked a few times considering the young man's words before nodding. "Alright then, thank you for that."

Suddenly a fluffy object slammed into the girls head and she jumped in shock. The object unfurled to reveal a floating catlike creature. "Ah you silly girl, what are you doing shooting Ice chunks, you should've frozen her feet."

It then turned to face the red haired man. "Hmm, as for you.. thanks for cleaning up after her. She can be a bit of a scatterbrain but she means well."

"Ah Puck, don't tell him that!" the silver haired girl cried out.

The small creature merely floated in circle around her before settling on her shoulder.

Shirou cracked his neck and motioned for the girl to follow him. "Well, we might as well get started. This town's a pretty big place after all, finding one person might prove to be a bit of a challenge."

The girl nodded and then moved to follow him.

0000000000000000000000000000000000000

* * *

As it turns out, it was more than a bit of a problem. More like an impossibility. After looking around the city in various places for the better part of two hours the two of them were now resting on a large balcony overlooking the city.

"From this vantage point we can see most of the city, but finding this thief in the ocean of people down there is like looking for a single fish in the ocean."

The girl smiled lightly while looking out over the bustling people below them. "You know, it's funny how some distance makes everything feel small."

Shirou turned to her and she continued. "It's like as big of a problem this is, when I look down at all of those individual people with their own lives, their own dreams, I realize just how small all of my worries really are. It's.. kind of comforting."

The Japanese man chuckled. "Well, I suppose that's one way to look at it. But to each of them their own problems probably seem like the end of the world. Humans tend to have a difficult time seeing the bigger picture."

"Eh, with all this philosophizing, you two are making my head hurt." The small mascot like character popped up and chastised the two of them.

The silver haired girl rose from her seat and smoothed out her white pleated skirt. "Ah that's right um.. I'm sorry what was your name again?"

The man smirked and gave a mock bow. "My name is Emiya Shirou, a pleasure to meet you miss…?"

"Ah I'm puck!" the cat like creature flew at him and went for a high five that Shirou amusedly returned.

The girl looked at him quizzically. "Oh, that's strange for a human to be able to touch a spirit so easily; you must have a tremendous amount of magical potential. Where are you from?"

Shirou closed his eyes in thought. "Well, that's a complicated answer. I suppose the easiest way to put it would be to say that I'm from a far away land to the east."

The girl shook her head, "That's impossible Lugunica is the farthest Eastern nation on the continental map. There's nothing else east of here."

"Have you heard of the Gate?" Shirou asked.

The girl shook her head. "No I'm afraid not, is that some sort of discreet passageway to a new land?"

Shirou considered this for a moment. "That's not.. entirely inaccurate."

"I've never heard of such a thing." Puck replied curiously.

"Oh" Shirou teased. "Then how exactly did you find yourself here Puck. Weren't you traveling with Guts on his way to kill Griffith."

"What?" the catlike mascot replied cluelessly. "Who's what? I don't wanna kill anyone."

Shirou just sighed and looked out over the balcony. "It's somewhat of an inside joke."

"Meh don't worry about it Mr. Emiya, people get my name wrong all the time, sometimes it's Pack sometimes it's Puck It all really depends on who's saying it. I answer to both so don't let it bother you too much."

"But still" the girl murmured looking off to the side and scratching her cheek. "You don't have any money, you can't read or write and you seem to be the only one who's ever head of this Gate um.. Shirou was it?"

Suddenly Puck floated up and bonked the girl on her head. "Ah don't just call him by his first name like that you silly girl. You have to wait until you know people before you do that, it's rude!"

Shirou chuckled. "That's quite alright, I don't mind really. I'm not much for formalities myself."

"That said" he tilted his head to the side. "I'm certainly glad to have learned Puck's name, but I'm still waiting to hear yours."

"My name?" the girl responded somberly.

She looked down for a bit then sighed and she looked back up and stared into his eyes. "Satella."

She turned away to look out over the city. "I have no family name, you can just call me Satella."

"I see." Shirou said calmly. "Well, Satella-san that's a lovely name. It's a pleasure to meet you."

He held you his hand to shake and was mildly surprised when Satella simply looked at him in confusion. She finally hesitantly raised her hand and shook it once.

Shirou stretched his back out and motioned to the stairs leading back down into the city. " Now, let's get back to the search. One little nimble blonde girl dressed like a stereotypical thief in a video game should have left at least some kind of trail we can follow."

His white haired companion and her floating cat familiar followed behind him and soon they were back on the streets asking for clues as to the elusive thief's whereabouts.

Shortly thereafter Satella paused and pointed to a small child with green hair standing in a corner looking back and forth fearfully. "Hey, Shirou don't you get the feeling that little girl is lost?"

He looked over her shoulder and sighed before reaching into the bag of fruit and pulling out an appa and throwing it into the air before catching it and stepping out towards the frightened child.

"Ahh it's the Bannana man!" she exclaimed happily and rushed over to latch onto Shirou's legs in a lug.

Satella was surprised by this. "Um, is this girl a friend of yours Shirou?"

The red haired man chuckled. "Well, we met earlier this morning while I was working with her father helping to get him set up. Is something wrong? Did you lose your mom?"

The girl pulled away from his leg and looked up with tears streaming down her face and nodded. She wiped her nose with her pink sleeve. "I was shopping with mommy, but there was a butterfly about to get run over. I just wanted to save it but it kept landing in front of the carts so I tried to get it to move. When I looked up… mommy was gone."

Shirou saw something in the corner of his eye.

He then turned to the girl holding on to him and stepped back a bit. "I see, tell me would you like to see a magic trick? If you watch closely and then close your eyes at the right time, when I tell you to open them your mother will appear."

"Really? You can do that something like that Shirou?" Satella inquired curiously.

The red haired magus chuckled. "Of course, I'm a wizard you know." He winked.

Then he paused for a bit and winced. "Well, a wizards apprentice technically. Or would it be sorceress… I'm not really sure what you'd call BLUE actually."

Shaking his head then then reached into his bag and pulled out 4 fruits. "All right now watch closely. "One fruit, two fruits, three fruits, four." He began to juggle all four of them in a perfect circle.

"I sure hope no fruits end up smashed on the floor." He pretended to stumble as he juggled and the small girl gave an excited squeal as her attention was entirely focused on the performance.

"Puck flies through the circle, and goes up and down.."

"Close your eyes, stamp your feet, and open them NOW!"

Shirou carefully let all of the fruits drop into a pile in each hand and stepped aside revealing a purple haired woman rushing up to the group.

"Momma!" the small child cried out and was quickly pulled into a hug.

The woman then looked up gratefully to Shirou with a appreciative smile. "Thank you so much for taking care of her. We're really racking up the debt with you Emiya-san."

"Not at all, I'm happy to help." He responded placing the slightly squishy fruits back in the bag.

The purple haired woman then took note of his companion. "Oh my, are you on a date? I certainly hope we didn't interrupt anything."

Satella's eyes shot open and a blush spread across her face. "It's nothing like that; I just met him earlier this morning!"

Shirou chuckled. "I am currently helping her look for someone who stole something from her."

The older woman nodded in understanding. "I see, unfortunately things like that happen all the time in these parts. Who are you looking for exactly; I might be able to point you in the right direction."

Shirou turned to face her and rubbed the back of his neck. "Well, from what I could tell, she seems to be a nimble, rather short blonde haired girl dressed in mismatching length tights and carrying a large dagger on her back."

"Oh." The woman said tilting her head to the side and patting her daughter's soft green hair. "Hmm, it might be Felt. That girl is always causing a ruckus with her thievery."

She looked thoughtful. "You could probably try asking around in the slums, they might know where you can find her. Just head to the west over that bridge you see next to the dragon monument."

Shirou and Satella thanked her for her help and the woman and her daughter bowed and then moved on wishing them luck.

As the pair then started on their way to the slums Satella turned to look at Shirou questioningly.

The man turned his head to face her. "Is something wrong?"

She considered her words for a moment then spoke. "It's just.. You seem to go out of your way to help everyone you can regardless of what you're already doing. Um, forgive me for saying this but aren't you the kind of person who wastes their whole life?"

The man raised an eyebrow. "In what regard?"

'Well" the girl continued. "You already said you have your own problems to deal with, and you're helping me without any reward, then there's that girl, and it just seems that you place more value in other people's problems then you do your own."

"Yup." Shirou said with a shrug. "It's really quite simple to me."

"Saving people isn't wrong. Helping people isn't wrong,. My dream is a world without tears. I want to save everyone or at least as many as I can"

He narrowed his eyes as memories of eons as a Counter Guardian seemed to flash before him. "I know well the price of such an idealistic pursuit." "But even so, even after everything I still don't believe I was wrong."

"Of course" he continued. "I don't think I can do it all on my own. I've learned my lesson from that mistake at least. This time I've gathered a group of likeminded people around me. It might be impossible to save everyone alone, to save a hundred you must sacrifice ten, But if ten people work together. They can save the whole hundred and ten easily."

Satella couldn't help but laugh. "That's so cheesy, but I have to admit it's pretty cool."  
She looked down and laced her fingers together. "I have to say, sometimes when you speak I really can't tell how old you are. It seems at times you have a sense of experience leagues beyond even mine, but others you seem almost like a kid."

Shirou grinned. "Well, don't take this the wrong way but I don't think it would take too much to be leagues beyond your age. What are you eighteen at the most?"

The girl sighed. "Not exactly" She brushed aside some strands of hair and pointed to her ear. "I'm a half elf."

She stopped walking and simply looked at the ground as if waiting for Shirou to turn and face her with suspicion or disgust but he merely continued onwards until he realized she wasn't following.

"Oh, I see, an elf huh that's rather rare. So eternal youth then that must be fun hmm.. Satella-san? Is everything all right?" He paused and looked back at her.

The girl merely stared at him with wide eyes. "Well, it's just.. I'm half elf.. you know.."

Shirou blinked in confusion then turned to Puck who was hovering around Satella excitedly.

The silver haired girl blushed in embarrassment and started shuffling her feet and she looked at the floor.

Meanwhile Puck shot straight at Shirou and punched him in the cheek with a closed paw. "You're a smooth talker Shirou. Are you a play boy?"

The fluffy punch caused Shirou to raise an eyebrow and then lightly flick Puck away and the spirit quickly returned to his master with a grin.

Eventually Satella shifted her eyes up to look at Shirou then quickly looked back down while keeping her head bowed. "Shirou.. You're a dunderhead."

The man tilted his head to the side. "Huh, dunderhead? That's a new one. I've been called distorted, idiot, faker, and janitor before but dunderhead.. eh I suppose it fits."

The woman huffed. "Moh, whatever." She lifted her head and patted down her skirt. "Let's just get back to the search."

And so they continued onwards towards the slums.

00000000000000000000000000000000000000

* * *

"Hmm, Felt huh, you might be able to find her around here I know she holes up somewhere along here, but I'm not sure where. The only other place I could think of is the shack up at the top of the hill. Sorry I can't be any more help."

Shirou bowed slightly. "That's fine, thanks a lot for all your help."

The rather thin man in a tattered shirt merely shrugged and lifted a hand up. "No problem bro, live strong."

Shirou raised an eyebrow. "Huh, do they have bicycles here? Or doping for that matter.."

The man blinked a few times but Shirou waved him off. "Forget it, thanks again. Live strong to you as well."

After continuing on Satella turned to her companion. "So which should we check first? Should we continue asking around for her house location or go look at the shack on the hill?"

Shirou considered it for a bit then spoke up. "I think the most efficient option would be to split up. We at least know where the shack is so I'll go look ahead and scout it out. If you don't find anything just head over and join me. If nothing else we'll meet in front of the door."

Satella nodded in agreement. "Ok then, If I can't find out anything I'll meet you in about an hour or so."

Shirou nodded and waved to her as she moved in the opposite direction.

He made his way up the hill listening to the gossip going on around him but he didn't find anything of any use. Finally he reached the shack and noted that there only seemed to be one door and the windows were barred.

He approached the shack and gave a soft knock on the solid wood.

A gruff voiced boomed out from the other side.

"For a rat?"

Shirou thought about it. _He needs to kill a rat?_

"Erm, Poison?"

"For a white hale?" the voice continued.

"I suppose you'd want a harpoon"

"To the noble Dragon lord we are.."

"Ehm.. dinner?."

There was silence then a booming laugh and the door swung open revealing a giant man nearly the size of the bandits he'd fought on his way to the capitol. "Eh, close enough."

Shirou walked into the musky shack and observed the giant man walking back to the bar. He was at least seven feet tall, and was heavily muscled and scarred. He had on a pair of tight green pants and a vest over his muscled torso. He was bald with red tribal tattoos on his scalp and large white bushy eyebrows.

The man moved behind the bar and turned to face Shirou. "So who the hell are you supposed to be?"

Shirou scratched his neck. "Ah yes, excuse me. My name is Emiya Shirou and I'm currently looking for a small insignia with a jewel in the center. I believe a girl named Felt might have taken it."

"Ah Felt, that little rascal." The man chuckled. "Well, she's bound to be coming by later on with some new merchandise. Maybe you can buy it once she gets here."

Shirou frowned slightly. "I don't seem to have too much money at this time. Is there any way she might be willing to trade for it?"

The old man chugged his beer and then slammed the glass down. "Eh, who knows? Felt's a spontaneous one. But either way, you'll have to wait till she gets here later."

Shirou hummed in acceptance then he slowly let his gaze wander over the disorganized pigsty of a bar.

"Tell me" he inquired innocently. "Would you like any help tidying up a bit?"

000000000000000000000000000000

* * *

An hour or so later a small blonde haired girl wearing a pair of pants with the leg cut off on the left side and a sleeveless vest over a black midriff top arrived at the shack's wooden door. She raised her hand to knock with a bored expression on her face when suddenly she froze. Her expression quickly shifted to one of confusion as she looked up.

"Er, who are you?" She inquired.

From his place on the roof Shirou stopped hammering and wiped some sweat from his brow with the sleeve of his black t-shirt. His Camo jacket was wrapped around his waist like a sweatshirt and his red hair blended into the evening skyline as he turned to gaze down at the shocked girl.

"Oh, Felt good evening. I've been waiting for you. Let me finish bolting this down and then we can head inside. I think Old man Rom-san has some milk waiting for us."

The girl tilted her head to the side. "Huh?"

After a few good whacks Shirou stood up and moved a few feet back to inspect his work. "Hmm, well it'll have to do for now."

He walked over to the edge of the roof and hopped down landing in a crouch and then rose back up and carefully rapped at the door. Felt simply followed his motion with her head.

The door exploded open and the grizzled old man enveloped him in a bone crushing hug. "Shirou, you're done already!? Great work lad, And Felt you're finally here come on in and check out the new and improved Rom's super shack version 2.0!"

The small girl looked from Rom to the strange red haired man and finally blew her top. "Will someone tell me who the hell this guy is!"

The old man turned to her and waved to his young helper. "Oh right, you haven't met yet. This is Shirou, he's a rival buyer looking to cut in on your sale. He's been a real help to me this afternoon. He's a good guy so I think you should at least hear what he has to say."

The blonde frowned as she moved around inspecting the red haired man and clucked her tongue. "Hmm, doesn't look like much to me, but meh. I suppose I'll hear you out, come on."

Shirou followed the two in to the bar and sat down on a small stool as rom placed a slightly warm glass of milk in frot of him and Felt. He cleared his throat and then bowed slightly to his new acquaintance. "Well, first off, let me ask you. Do you have a metal insignia with a jewel in the center of it by any chance?"

The smaller girl widened her eyes slightly before reaching into a pouch and pulling the requested item out. "This thing sure seems to be pretty popular. I don't really see the big deal for something this small, but everyone wants it for some reason. Well what is your offer."

Shirou scratched his head and then reached into his own book bag and pulled out a small box. "This is a model of a er.. magical suit of armor called a Gundam. You can take all the parts out and put it together yourself and once you're done you can pose it and set it up for display. It's a re-pose able mini statue.

"Ooh, let me see that." replied Rom. He picked up the box in his gargantuan hands and carefully inspected the image of the Gundam on the front. "So you're saying that this armor all fits inside this tiny box?"

Shirou scratched his cheek. "Eh, yeah pretty much. You have to put it together but that's half the fun."

Felt raised an eyebrow. "I dunno, that seems to be pretty stupid to me. Are people really willing to pay a good price for something like that?"

Rom placed the box down and scratched his chin, "Hmm, well a noble would certainly like to have something like that as decoration. The fact that you can move it around and change its poses is really something unusual. It's a bit exotic, but I'd wager you could probably get at least 10 holy coins for it."

Felt frowned but she still looked undecided.

Shirou reached into the bag again. "Alright, how about this? "

He pulled out a small box and pushed a few buttons. Suddenly the ambient evening noise was broken by the sound of a Japanese girl belting out a chorus in accented english.

" _I WANT YOU… I want you .. I NEED YOU I need you.."_

Felt suddenly bolted up and pointed at the small Mp3 player. "W-what is that? Is that some sort of micro music box? !"

Shirou sighed. "Eh sort of. It plays a long list of songs from this particular group. It's pre loaded with the entire album and several live and acoustic performances. The group is called AKB-48."

Felt carefully examined the small box and Shirou pushed a button switching the player to its next track. He continued this for several dozen different sons and both Rom and Felt were astonished. "Amazing! This must be some sort of musical metia or something!" Rom exclaimed.

Felt turned to him for confirmation and he nodded gesturing to the still playing music box. "A metia is lost technology that allows people without an opened gate to use magic."

Really!?" Felt cried out. "That's amazing; I bet I could get a real haul for something like that!"

Rom nodded. "Oh absolutely, a metia like this, would be worth at least 25 Holy coins, maybe even more if they like the music."

Felt seemed to develop dollar signs in place of her eyes and she turned to face Shirou just as a soft knock at the door interrupted the group's discussion.

Soon Felt returned followed by a young woman in a black coat. "Over here, if you care to sit down we were just discussing business."

The woman entered the room but quickly paused and tilted her head at the Mp3 player still currently playing an upbeat Jpop tune sitting on the bar. "Oh my, what is that strange contraption? I don't recognize the instruments."

Felt smirked and shrugged her shoulders. 'I'm afraid it's trouble for you. This guy here has some pretty solid stuff and he's looking to trade for the insignia you wanted. He's your business rival and I gotta say, he's pretty much got you beat."

The woman then turned to face Shirou and Rom and her eyes widened in surprise. "Oh, well now this is a surprise. If it isn't the young hero from yesterday, I'm glad to see you seem to have found a place to rest. Is your warrior bunny friend all right I don't see her here anywhere?"

Shirou smiled and stood up to bow and pulled the chair out for the woman to sit at. A life with Saber had unwittingly resulted in a somewhat chauvinistic code of chivalry being impressed on him, though ironically not on Saber herself.

"Yes, thanks for asking. She's currently staying back at the inn while I conduct my business for today."

"Eh?" questioned Old man Rom. "You know Shirou here? He's quite the lady's man huh. I never woulda figured."

"Shirou?" she replied with lidded eyes and pleasant smile. Testing the words on her tongue she nodded. "Interesting, that's a bit of a strange name, but fitting I suppose. I should return the favor then. I am Elsa Granhirte. It's a pleasure to finally make your proper acquaintance."

Shirou bowed slightly and took his own seat. "Likewise, Granhirte san."

"Oh please." She smiled closing her eyes. "Call me Elsa."

He nodded then then accepted a glass of milk from Rom to hand to Elsa.

After a brief explanation Elsa finished her milk with a final sip and sensually allowed her tongue to wipe the excess from her lips. "I see. I think I get the gist of it. That metia is certainly something though I must say the music isn't really to my tastes."

She placed the Gundam model box down on the table and motioned to the insignia.

"However, as it happens my client sent me with some extra funds just in case I needed to sweeten the deal."

She reached down and placed a small pouch on table next to the Gundam model. Emptying the pouch revealed a stack of ten shining holy coins that scattered as they left the confines of the purse. She placed another set next to them. "All together I was given twenty holy coins for this purchase. I am prepared to offer you twenty coins here on the spot for the insignia."

Rom nodded as he looked at the stack of coins but then he lifted a gnarled finger up. "That's quite the offer, but unfortunately Shirou's metia and the model he offered are worth at least thirty five holy coins. Your proposal is quite generous, but in this case I believe the young man simply has you beat in every way. A fifteen coin profit is nothing to sneeze at."

Shirou sighed and scratched the back of his neck. "I'm really sorry about this Elsa-san I hope you won't get in too much trouble with your employer."

She waved him off with a smile. "Oh well. No worries. It's my employers fault for trying to underpay."

Elsa rose from her seat and adjusted her black fur coat. "I must confess I am curious Shirou-san. What exactly are you intending to do with that insignia?"

Shirou smiled and brought his hands below the table to his lap muttering slightly under his breath.

Closing his eyes he shrugged. "Actually I'm friends with the person who this originally belonged to. I was hoping I could surprise her and return it to her."

Rom and Felt's eyes snapped to him and there was a small silence after this admission.

"Oh." Elsa remarked calmly narrowing her eyes. "Is that so?"

"Idio-" Felt exclaimed and tried to push Shirou out of the way but he held out his hand and palmed her head keeping her in place.

In his other hand he held the curved hatchet like blade of his new opponent locked against a pure white blade with a black triangle and a yin yang symbol etched near the guard.

His sword had exploded from under the table and sent cracks splintering through the top causing the Gundam and Mp3 player to clatter to the floor alongside a pile of holy coins.

His eyes slowly opened but his smile never faltered.

"So you finally decided to show yourself. I was wondering how much longer we were going to be playing that game. I have to say you're easily the most polite Dead Apostle I've ever met."

He brought a combat boot up and kicked the damaged table forwards at Elsa and she finally broke off the blade lock with a shower of sparks and with her free hand swiped the incoming table to the side with inhuman strength.

"Dead Apostle?" She questioned curiously.

Shirou rose from his chair and kicked it back sending it clattering to the floor to act as a makeshift barrier between him and the still shocked Felt.

"Eh, would you prefer vampire?" he remarked dryly.

For the first time since meeting her Elsa's eyes widened and she recoiled slightly before a strange smirk settled on her features. "How very interesting.. I wonder when you made that discovery."

Shirou took a balanced stance and held his single blade forwards in a simple guard. "I could tell from the moment we met. I just wanted to see what your intentions were."

"Aha." She laughed. "I suppose a hero like you would be used to fighting monsters like me."

"But you know." She reached down and pulled out a second curved kukri hatchet blade and let them drop by her sides in a loose stance. "This monster has killed her fair share of hero's as well."

"That's enough of this, what the hell do you think you're doing!" roared out Rom as he reached for a giant cudgel and charged at the dark woman.

She easily sidestepped the telegraphed swing and then began weaving around as Rom smashed and crushed the bar's interior all to the tune of _Aitakatta_ coming from the miraculously still functioning Mp3 player on the floor.

"Hey now, Rom-san." Shirou deadpanned with a twitching eyebrow as the bar top he'd just polished a scant hour ago was smashed to pieces by another whiffing miss from Rom's rampage.

"You're kinda tearing up the bar I just spent all afternoon helping you fix."

Felt turned to look at Shirou. "Hey, just shut up and watch. There's no way that Old man Rom will lose."

The older man merely grunted. "Keep yer traps shut. I'll smash her into paste in just a moment."

The woman leapt back and easily evaded a swing meant to behead her. "I'm afraid you're far too slow to hit me Giant-san. In fact, I think it's just about time for my counter attack."

With this she twirled around a vertical slam and with a wicked slash with one of her swords she cut a deep gash into the back of the overextended Rom.

She casually flicked her blade to the side sending a small spray of blood flying as Rom collapsed to the floor behind her and dropped his cudgel with a loud thud.

"Old man!" screeched Felt and she prepared to draw her blade and rush in when Shirou gripped her wrist with his free arm halting her. "That's won't accomplish anything. He needs help, go and get some sort of a medical specialist to come here. I'll take care of her in the meantime."

Felt grit her teeth and looked back and forth between the two for a moment before she sneered and replaced her weapon fully in her back sheathe then turned to exit but was blocked by Elsa as she stepped in front of her.

"And where do you think you're going? I'm afraid I have already decided that it's best to kill you all and take the insignia so I can't very well let you just run along as you please."

Shirou threw his sword at the woman's head and she had to lean back to avoid the blade. "You might want to pay attention to your current predicament."

Bending back into her stance she saw Shirou crouching in front of her somehow still holding the sword he'd just thrown.

"Wha-" she remarked in confusion as the red haired man slashed up forcing her to move aside and right into a foot sweep that nearly toppled her. She stabbed a blade into the ground to stop her fall and swung her body up over it and stabbed out with her remaining weapon. Shirou easily flipped his sword in a reverse grip to parry the stab and slid down to punch her inverted form.

Elsa had to release her grip on the grounded blade and push off in order to avoid the blade punch that barely missed her neck.

She landed silently on her feet and carefully regarded her opponent with renewed interest.

Her eyes briefly left him to see Felt's swiftly moving form hopping from rooftop to rooftop outside.

Elsa clucked her tongue in irritation. "Ah how troublesome. Now I'll have to go track down the little rat after I'm done with you."

Shirou retracted his arm and flipped his sword back to a standard grip. "I wouldn't worry too much about that. I doubt you'll be doing much of anything once this is through unless you count turning to ash from my burning of your undead corpse."

"Oh, you do know how to show a girl a good time. I hope your little rabbit friend isn't terribly jealous." She smirked then licked her blade and the pair began to circle one another.

From the floor off to the side Rom grunted out and in a raspy voice. "Watch out for her blades. The distance isn't what you think."

Shiriou nodded. "I'm aware of that. Curved blades of a northern tribal design, they reflect light in an irregular pattern and in low lit conditions appear to be shorter than they really are, the favored weapons of Elsa the Bowel Hunter."

"Oh you realized that part too? How perceptive" Elsa complimented him.

"B-bowel hunter!?" Rom grunted out before coughing up some blood and slumping down further. "What someone like that doing here.. this is bad.."

Elsa sighed. "Well now they know.. I suppose it can't be helped."

Noticing the still open door allowing the rapidly dimming evening light to filter in she gestured to the exit. "Let's keep this between ourselves for the moment shall we. A little privacy is nice sometimes."

She turned away and slammed the door.

 _Wait a second.. Something's familiar about all this.._

Shirou shook his head and leveled his blade at his opponent just as she blurred from view in a burst of super speed. Shirou's enhanced eyes observed her in what seemed to him as bullet time.

Elsa reappeared in front of him and attempted to cut him down in a vertical chop that Shirou easily blocked with his own sword.

The woman wasn't finished though as she lashed out with her free hand and attempted to grab his shirt but Shirou repelled her free gripping hand with his own. She dropped down and attempted to sweep his legs but he lifted a leg and stomped kicked her sweep without moving from his position.

His counter pushed her back and she rolled forwards over her shoulder and spun around slamming her blade into the floor to halt her momentum.

Shirou moved to get an angle on her but she charged in again with a manic look on her face. "You're quite the skilled swordsman, yet I sense no pride in your swordsmanship, ever the consummate professional Hm?"

Shirou didn't reply and instead he stepped around her charging form before she could attack and slashed down in an attempt to hamstring her.

The woman was able to spin her blade down to block the leg strike and then broke way only to turn and charge him again.

The two moved through already damaged bar weaving and spinning in a whirlwind of slashes and stabs from every direction. Neither had landed a significantly damaging blow yet in their dance, but Elsa was becoming increasingly unhinged.

As her composure began to slip she titled her head to observe her opponent. "I simply don't understand it Shirou. Why stand in my way. Don't you have your own task to accomplish? Why risk your life for such a meaningless cause?"

The magus smirked. "It's not meaningless. I gave my word to Satella-san and I intend to keep it. My word is my bond. I could ask you the same however. Why live like this? I can smell the stench of blood and bowels on you, but strangely enough not ingested. You don't seem to have the standard blood thirst, so what drives you to do this?"

The woman laughed in amusement. "A reason? Why I simply love to see the bowels of my foes. I love seeing their life slowly fade from their faces, their defiance and pride shattering into dust. It makes me shiver just thinking about it!"

"I learned from an early age, life is a fleeting thing so one should seek as much pleasure as possible before it's over. It's such a liberating feeling."

"Ideas like morality, or decency are just illusions created by the weak to justify their pathetic existence. I have no need for such trivial things."

"No, hope, no dreams, no right, no wrong, no rules for me! Ha ha!"

 _Wait.. There's no way._

"Now then." She continued momentarily regaining her self-control. She reached down and plucked her second sword from its place stuck in the floor. "Let's turn it up a notch." She grinned maniacally.

Shirou held out his blade and put his other hand in his pocket.

Elsa attacked again but this time her dual wielding blades began flashing out and Shirou began losing ground slowly as he walked backwards while deflecting the typhoon of slashes with his single blade.

"Still not using both hands? You're hurting my feelings you know!"

She dropped low and switched both blades to a reverse grip. With a sound of screeching metal she attempted to carve out his stomach but Shirou managed to place the flat of his blade against his body as armor and leapt backwards to keep her at range.

A grunting sound momentarily alerted the two to the still heavily injured Rom lying in a puddle of blood near Elsa's current position. Her eyes briefly shifted to his prone form before moving back to stare into Shirou's with a cruel smirk forming on her lips. She slowly began to lower her blade to the wounded man's neck.

"Oh, fudge me." Shirou groaned and shot forwards to shoulder ram her just as the vampire went to slam her blade into the wounded giant.

"Careful now, Shirou.. The hero must always protect the innocent after all. You almost dropped the ball on that one."

He narrowed his eyes and re positioned himself in front of Rom and prepared to continue his fight while simultaneously guarding him.

Elsa hunched over and her pointy edged coat draped around her like a living suit of darkness. She stepped back into the shadows and her eyes appeared to glow in the final rays of sunlight filtering in through the window.

Shirou sighed and finally brought his other hand out of his pocket.

"Trace on." He murmured and in his out stretched hand a shield materialized. It appeared to be a large Spartan shield of bronze and semi ornately decorated.

He moved it around to his back and slammed it into the hard wood floor embedding it a foot deep in front of Rom.

While he rotated Elsa struck and she stabbed both blades out one directly behind the other. Shirou parried the first with his sword but as he saw the second traveling hidden behind it he had to twist and slip it to the side. He dropped down and spun around to foot sweep her.

Elsa saw through this and hopped over it and she moved around the shield to attack Rom but to her surprise the shield seemed to move places the instant she struck.

"Sorry" Shirou said coolly. "That shield will automatically reposition itself to block any attack within its distance radius. It's a bit of a special case."

Elsa looked behind her and slowly rose up before turning and facing her opponent once more. "Truly?" Her eyes widened with glee. "Yes, you're far more than I ever gave you credit for. I think I shall take that shield and that delightful little butter knife you've been using once I've flayed you."

Shirou narrowed his eyes and he raised his sword up and brought his second hand back to his body with his wrist turned inwards to protect his arteries. "Come and get it."

"Yes" she exclaimed ecstatically. "This is what I've been missing. I've been forced to hunt such pathetically weak prey for so long my fangs had grown dull; but now, finally! It's time to see what I can do, to test the limits. No.. I'll break through them and ascend to even greater heights!"

 _She is.. she's actually saying it.._

She widened her eyes in a crazed manner and her grin nearly split her face.

"Your blood will be a fitting sacrifice to Emroy-sama!"

"However, as thanks for bringing me such exhilaration I think I shall keep your skull as a souvenir!"

"Would you like tha-"

Suddenly she was interrupted as blast of blue magic exploded through the doorway resulting in a massive pillar of ice shooting up and entrapping her.

Shirou suppressed a small shiver as the temperature suddenly dropped.

"Are you all right Shirou!?" a sweet voice called out from the busted doorway.

"Yes thank you for the assistance Satella-san. Could you help out Rom-san? The shield won't block you as long as you don't try to attack" he replied pointing with his sword to the wounded giant on the floor.

Suddenly Puck flew in through the open doorway and made a dramatic flip before posing with his hands on his hips. "Tada, one insta-bad guy popsicle!"

Shirou sighed scratching his cheek with his finger while holding his sword in the other three. "Er.. yeah, thanks for the save Puck.. do you think you can help Stella-san with the healing?"

The catlike spirit shook his head while mock flexing his arm. "Mmm, nah. That's more her thing. I'm just the muscle."

He turned to the still frozen Elsa and smirked haughtily. "I hope your stay at hotel Puck isn't too unpleasant."

Suddenly the ice began to crack down the middle.

Shirou deadpanned. "Why did I see that coming.."

A few more cracks splintered out and Puck moved back in surprise and settled near Satella's shoulder with wide eyes.

Finally the icy pillar exploded and sent small shards of ice flying in all directions that upon contact turned into blue particles

As the lights returned to normal levels in the room The vampiress' lithe figure could be seen standing among a few remaining jagged chunks of ice. "That's quite alright" Elsa replied shaking some small flakes of ice from her raven tresses.

She placed a hand on her hip and smiled. "The cold never bothered me anyway."

"…..."

"OK, YOU'RE TOTALLY DOING THAT ON PURPOSE!" Shirou exclaimed pointing at her with a twitching eye.

All eyes turned to the red haired man and a brief silence filled the room.

"Ara?" Elsa replied blinking cutely.

Shirou face palmed himself with his free hand and shook his head before twirling his sword hand dismissively. "Never mind, we might as well go with it."

Satella narrowed her eyes and prepared to fire a set of ice bursts.

Elsa snorted as she effortless weaved around the projectiles "How rude, didn't your mother teach you not to cut in on another woman's dance little girl."

Puck prepared to fire off another massive blast of magic but he suddenly seemed to shimmer a bit before his eyelids dropped. "Oh no, it looks like I'm outta time.. Sorry, but I can't stay out any longer. Shirou you better not let Lia die or I just might have to come back and destroy the whole world." Puck smiled cutely with his morbid joke and then he faded into spirit particles.

Elsa grinned toothily. "Well, looks like you just lost your heavy hitter."

Shirou suddenly appeared behind her and slashed across her back. "I wouldn't say that."

The woman rolled forwards and turned her flat blade as a shield against the small icy blasts as she regained her footing.

When she finally rose back up her black coat had been cut at the back and a small red line streaked across her back.

Elsa frowned. "I liked this coat."

He demeanor darkened and she gripped her blades tighter.

Shirou turned to his helper. "Satella-san I appreciate the help but Rom-san really needs some healing. I need you to focus on him. I will deal with our guest."

The white haired elf girl turned to look between Rom and Shirou. "Are you sure? She's pretty strong.."

"There's no need to worry, I will assist him maam. Please do whatever you can for that man" a smooth voice called out from the destroyed doorway.

In walked another red haired man but this one was wearing a radiant white and blue uniform complete with a golden sword on his back hip.

"What now.." bit out an irritated Elsa. "They just keep crawling out of the woodwork."

"Hey, shut up and get away from the old man you hag!" Felt screamed from behind the newcomer. He motioned her behind him with a black gloved hand. "Please stay behind me Miss Felt. This woman is quite dangerous."

He turned to the fuming Elsa. "Elsa the Bowel Hunter, there are many things I would like to ask you. I strongly suggest you surrender, I do not wish to use violence upon a woman."

The dark haired woman snorted. "Ever the perfect knight aren't you Reinhard, descendant of a line of master swordsmen, truly a tantalizing pr-."

Shirou darted in from the side and grabbed her head and threw her through a wall. "About that whole violence on a woman thing, I'm perfectly fine with it.. provided they're trying to kill me."

The man in white blinked in surprise. "That was a bit uncalled for don't you think?"

Shirou shrugged feeling particularly Archery. "Meh, equal rights, equal lefts."

His new acquaintance blanched. "Th-that's horrible! What sort of knight are you?"

"A bad one?" Shirou retorted.

Just then Elsa launched out of the rubble slashed across his abdomen, but instead of dodging backwards as she expected Shirou stepped into the arc of power before her swing reached maximum velocity and tapped, with a slight twist his blade on the handle of her own sending the weapon flying from her hands in a small twirl.

Shirou snatched it in mid air without breaking his stride and began attacking her with his own weapon as well as the one he'd pilfered from her.

Finally losing her amused expression she glared at him. "That doesn't belong to you boy, take your filthy hands off my weapon!"

"Eh? Sorry I can't hear you over the sound of the ass kicking I'm unleashing." Shirou tauntingly remarked.

"My blade" Elsa bit out with gritted teeth. "Let it go!"

Shirou chuckled. "Are you one with the wind and sky?"

She made a mad swipe at his throat but he parried it easily with the stolen sword.

"Conceal don't feel." He quipped.

"Shut up!" she roared. "Give it back!"

"Ok." Shirou chucked it at her with enough force to tear the floorboards up as it flew. Elsa did her best to dodge but the blade bit into her arm cutting a large gash and spraying blood on the ceiling.

Behind her, the blade sunk into a support beam up to the guard.

She winced and stumbled forwards with her damaged arm hanging limply at her side.

"Shirou prepared to attack again, but he was intercepted by his fellow red head.

"I think that's enough, my friend. She's going to need medical attention before I bring her into questioning."

Shirou rolled his eyes at the man. "Yes, I'm sure she's totally going to go quietly."

The man brushed his red locks away from his forehead. "Regardless, we must give her the chance. She's been beaten. There's no need to rub salt in the wound."

Shirou stepped around and looked over the knight's shoulder then sighed dropping his head and pointing.

"You might want to take a look behind you."

The white garbed man turned around and to his surprise the woman had vanished.

Shirou looked up at the roof and allowed his traced sword to fade. "Great job, Captain white knight."

"Shirou, I think he's going to be alright, I've done all I can for him." Satella called out to him from behind the shield and he allowed it to fade into shimmering motes of light.

The red haired magus started walking over to her, but stopped when his foot hit a small box on the floor lying amongst the rubble.

"Wow, that's one tough Mp3 player.. AKB really don't play around do they.."

He reached down and finally turned the player off and walked over behind the bar where his bag was thrown.

The white garbed knight turned to the half elf girl and bowed. "Miss, are you alright? If you require any assistance or any healing yourself I would be honored to be of service."

As they were speaking Felt was unsuccessfully attempting to drag Rom out the door when the knight turned to face them.

"Miss felt, officially I cannot overlook what you've done."

"Eh, but it's really alright as long as I get my insignia back." Satella responded.

"However" the man continued holding up a finger and smiling. "It so happens that I am off duty today."

Satella giggled at this and the knight smiled warmly with a bow.

Felt pouted a bit before standing up and walking over to Satella clearing her throat.

"Look, you saved Old man Rom so I guess I kinda owe you one.. so here."

She moved to hand her a black insignia with a red jewel in the center.

Upon seeing this, the white garbed knight gripped Felt's wrist in a vice grip with a serious expression on his face.

"Ah, you're hurting me let go!" Felt cried out.

The man ignored this and mere stared at the insignia and Felt's hand. "It can't be.. What is your name? Your last name? How old are you?!"

"Huh?" Felt responded. "W-what's with all the questions.. I don't know it's Felt just Felt, and I'm 15 or so. I don't know whadda you want!"

"My apologies miss" he said turning to Satella and closing his eyes. "I'm afraid I cannot keep my promise to you."

"I shall be taking this girl with me. It's certainly true that her theft is a grave crime, but compared to the gravity of overlooking the crime unfolding before me it's trivial."

He pulled Felt closer to him by her wrist. "I need you to come with me. I'm sorry but I cannot allow you to refuse."

Felt started to reply when he held up a hand in front of face and released a bit of magic energy causing her to faint.

She slumped down and as he moved to pick her up a tanned hand suddenly clamped down on his shoulder.

"Yeah" Shirou replied nonchalantly but with steel in his narrowing golden eyes. "I don't think so."

* * *

AN.

Shirou VS Reinhard

Should be fun to write, or not...

Maybe I'll just do a flashback or something and skip it who knows. I'm experimenting with a new fight scene choreography style. It's a bit more complex, but let me know if you guys can follow it or find it more engaging.

As a fun minigame try finding all the Frozen references in the chapter. Not all of them are in plain sight.

Up next is the new Fate and Highschool DXD story. I have more stuff planned for this story all the way to the next two arcs, but we'll see how it goes.

Next chapter: Unlimited Maid Works!

Reviews are always appreciated.


End file.
